


His Bones Are Coral Made

by impertinence



Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-07 01:17:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1113792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impertinence/pseuds/impertinence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone takes the Luidaeg. The Luidaeg says not to, but Toby hunts her down anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Bones Are Coral Made

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psiten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psiten/gifts).



> abby beta'd this, thank you abby!!!
> 
> This was supposed to be posted for Yuletide, but then I didn't finish on time. So now I am posting it.

_“Full fathom five thy father lies;_  
Of his bones are coral made;  
Those are pearls that were his eyes:  
Nothing of him that doth fade,  
But doth suffer a sea-change  
Into something rich and strange.  
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong  
Hark! now I hear them,—Ding-dong, bell.”  
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest 

_____

 

_The Luidaeg_

The Luidaeg didn't hate dawn. Far from it. Dawn was a beautiful fucking time, and the rush of pain was just a reminder that her old body dragged on, day after day, since time immemorial. Hell, these days she even had a name - something of a name, anyway. Not her old name, and not her honorific (if you could call 'Sea Witch' an honorific, but really, what mattered was how you wore it), but a name all the same. And at that particular moment, no one was saying it in tones of fear, and one annoying knight in particular wasn't saying it while heading off to what might - constantly - be her last battle. So insomuch as she could feel anything, the Luidaeg was feeling pretty mellow, sitting in her living room and watching the sun come up.

She was a morning glory, always late to bed and late to wake up at night. She was drinking tea now, strong black tea that tasted of saltwater and had a bit of grit to it. It was a good, good morning. 

And then she felt it. A tear in the world, widening and widening, so quickly that she barely had time to say, "Fucking hell," before she was being sucked into it.

 

_Toby_

Toby was feeling good. Mellow, even. Relaxed.

Really, she should've realized it was a warning sign.

She hadn't seen Quentin in a few days; he was at Sylvester's knowe, visiting with his parents. And that definitely wasn't something she was going to forget about any time soon. Quentin's parents, the High King and Queen. She shuddered, taking another sip of coffee.

She understood, mostly, why Sylvester would stick Quentin with her. Quentin had let slip enough about his parents for Toby to assume they were at least moderately radical - for nobility, anyway. It'd been two months since they left after the coronation of the new Queen in the Mists, and they were just back for a brief few days; Toby had no desire to see them again, but was grateful that they were letting Quentin stay with her for now. And in the intervening two months, she'd come to understand it, more or less. It helped that Tybalt had laughed at her, and said, "You never really think about how others see you, do you, October?" Tybalt had a knack for making her blind spots into things she was at least aware of.

But, altogether: feeling good. Feeling really good.

So of course Quentin came back with a scared look on his face.

The second he stepped into the living room, she clutched her coffee tighter and sat up a little straighter. "What is it?"

Quentin cleared his throat, then frowned. He looked at a loss, which sent a tiny shiver of fear running down Toby's spine. Quentin hardly ever looked like that these days, even when they were on the verge of dying. "Quentin. Tell me what's wrong."

"It's the Luidaeg," Quentin said. "She's gone."

For a second, the words just didn't register with Toby. They seemed too ridiculous, too unlikely. When she finally processed them, she opened her mouth to say something intelligent, and came up with, "Huh?"

"I went to her house," Quentin said. "It's empty. The windows are boarded up, and the boards are decaying. It looks like it's been vacant for years - maybe decades. She's gone."

"Maybe she decided to take a vacation." Toby took a long drink of coffee. "Did she say anything to you?"

Quentin shook his head. "I thought of that, but when was the last time she left? San Francisco grew up around her. This is trouble, I know it is."

"Quentin -" Toby held a hand out, then thought better of it, tucking it between her leg and the couch. "Maybe," she said. "With our track record, probably. But we'll need to look into it a little more."

Quentin still looked incredibly upset. A sense of dread was building in Toby, too, but damned if she was going to let that show. "Get it together," she said. Not harshly, but when he looked at her, she didn't back down. "We'll go over there, do some poking around. It might be nothing, or it might be something. And if it's something, we'll deal with it. Okay?"

He nodded.

"Now go get dressed in some street clothes." She sighed, looking down at her coffee. "Something tells me I'm going to need more of this."

It was a misty day when they drove to the Luidaeg's. That wasn't exactly unusual, but right now it got Toby's back up a bit. The sense of dread increased as they got closer to the Luidaeg's neighborhood: the houses looked more run-down, there were more rats, and people looked weary. This wasn't how the Luidaeg's neighborhood usually looked. She took care of her people - in her own way, but still.

"Okay," Toby said when they were parked a few blocks away. "I guess there's no point in telling you to stay in the car."

"Not even a little," Quentin said.

Toby nodded. "Let's do this, then."

They had their human disguises on as they walked to the house. Toby could smell Quentin's magic, and her own, but the closer they got to the house, the more those scents were overwhelmed. Toby felt a painful lurch in her stomach when she saw the Luidaeg's house - there were beetles scurrying over the mouldering boards on the windows, and the concrete stoop was cracked and crumbling.

"Oberon's balls," she muttered. "Let's circle around back."

"I told you something was wrong," Quentin said in a low voice.

"Next time I won't doubt your instincts." She meant it, even. "Come on, circle. If something's happened, the Luidaeg might've left a trail."

They walked on her lawn, sloping down towards the beach, gingerly. There were bugs and the odd snake, and on top of that, the grass seemed sharper than grass had any right to be. The house seemed normal, if in several decades of disrepair. When they got to the back - where the house was mounted on stilts and there was a narrow, dangerous-looking staircase leading up to a large deck - Toby said, "I guess it's time to find out if this is an enchantment."

"You're going to probe the Luidaeg's magic?" Quentin had that special mix of fearful and impressed that she'd come to treasure.

"That's right." She brought out her knife - the non-iron one, given the restoration of her ever-growing fae blood - and made a tiny cut on her finger. Before it had a chance to heal, she pressed it against one of the wooden stilts.

Evil rushed through her.

Toby tried to stay away from the more flowery descriptions, even when they fit. Oleander had been evil; the Countess had been evil. Hell, the Queen of the Mists hadn't been any walk in the park, either. But overall, they were just power-tripping fae, and that wasn't particularly interesting.

This was old and evil. Malignant. The house wasn't under a glamour; it _had_ decayed, both because the Luidaeg's magic was gone, and because this stinking, horrific magic was holding onto it. It wasn't a glamour, and it wasn't any of the usual fae magic. It was something different. Something older.

"Toby. Toby." She became aware, suddenly, that Quentin was shaking her, his voice high and afraid. "Toby, are you okay?"

She pulled her hand away from the stilt, distantly noting that it was, in fact, shaking. "Maeve's tits."

"Um."

"Sorry." She shook her head. "You're right. Something was here. Something - old. Bad."

"Old and bad enough to kill the Luidaeg?"

"Not kill. I would've felt it. I think they took her."

"What could kidnap the Luidaeg?"

"Something we probably don't want to deal with."

"But we will." Quentin's voice sounded on the edge of desperation. "We will, Toby, right?"

"Of course we will." She wiped her hand on her pants and forced herself to sound businesslike. Quivering terror could wait. "Come on. Let's see what's in the house. If there's even a trace of a hint of where she's gone, we'll find it."

"Okay." Quentin nodded. "Let's go."

They climbed up the steps carefully. Toby was paying attention to everything - the sound of the waves, the somewhat disturbing slithering in the grass, the creaking of the stairs. It took them longer than it should've to climb up the stairs, but as soon as Quentin got to the top, Toby took an inventory of their surroundings.

Crappy-looking seat cushions. A rickety table with an umbrella with three huge holes in it. Empty beer bottle cans laid out in no particular pattern. Not even the slightest hint of magic, which disturbed Toby even more than a stink would have. What kind of being could hide that much power?

Wondering wasn't going to solve the case, though, so Toby said, "Let's go inside."

She tapped the lock and it opened. Toby hoped, for their sake and the Luidaeg's, that she'd thrown that enchantment together at the last minute, to let Toby in. Or, in less narcissistic terms, that she'd always keyed Toby to be let in in times of crisis. Or something. Anything but what Toby was starting to suspect - namely, that the Luidaeg being kidnapped had stripped all of her enchantments from this realm.

Assuming she was right, and the Luidaeg had been kidnapped, rather than killed.

The house smelled dank and the floors were sagging in the middle, so much that Toby edged around the walls, hoping it wasn't going to actually collapse. They went through the living room and the bedrooms silently - there was nothing there, no indication of where the Luidaeg might have gone. Toby was ready to call the whole thing a wash and call in reinforcements when they got into the kitchen.

On the wall above the table were words, glowing white against the dank streaks on the wall: DON'T FOLLOW ME.

"Oak and ash," Quentin whispered. "Was this meant for us?"

Toby reached out with her magic. The Luidaeg's magic was here, the first she'd felt in the house; it was strong, but also tasted of that same, overbearing evil as the rest of the house. She had, then, been taken. Somewhere Toby had no idea how to follow. 

She felt the weight of age pressing into her, crushing her. The Luidaeg, older than anyone - older than her mother, even. What could possibly take her? What could overpower her?

And why didn't the Luidaeg at least want Toby to try to fight it?

"Let's get home," Toby said finally. "We'll ward this place and summon the troops, so to speak. Are your parents still in town?"

Quentin nodded.

"Good. We'll need their approval. We'll need - a lot, really. Tybalt. May. Everyone."

"This is bad, isn't it."

"Very," Toby said. She thought of something and laughed, sounding a little harsh and crazy even to her own ears. "But at least I probably won't have to summon the night haunts."

Quentin didn't laugh, didn't even smile. He just led the way out, looking poleaxed.

They got home and explained what had happened to May. Tybalt showed up almost immediately - courtesy of Cagney and Lacey, Toby was sure - and got the explanation, too. As serious as May looked, Tybalt looked even more concerned. "You're going to throw yourself at it, aren't you? Whatever it is."

"I've already been to a sealed-off realm," Toby said. "What's one or two more?"

Tybalt shook his head. "I admire your ability to spit in the eye of fear, but I have to say, this is not ideal. Did you even think about following the Luidaeg's order?"

Toby stared at him blankly.

He sighed. "I thought not. Let's go to the Duke's knowe, then, and announce this plan to them."

"We'll need to tell the Queen in the Mists, too."

"Ah. A prospect less daunting than it once was."

"We'll look on the bright side for now," Toby said. Arden had her stuff together, for the most part, and wasn't likely to arrest Toby for helping the Sea Witch. For not, that would have to be enough. "Alert Dean, too. His parents will have a vested interest in this."

"I'll send someone," Tybalt said. He stepped forward, touching Toby's shoulder lightly. "Are you okay? She was your friend."

"And Gillian was my daughter," Toby said. "I'll push through."

He smiled slightly. "That's not really reassurance, little fish."

"I know," Toby said. "But it's what I've got." She squared her shoulders. "Let's go to Shadowed Hills."

 

It took just a few minutes to explain what had happened to Sylvester and the High King and Queen - which, really, was as good an indication as any of what a mess this was. No evidence, no convoluted story. The Luidaeg was gone, and they had no idea why.

Toby's first instinct was to wait until the High King and Queen were gone to describe the evil she'd felt, but she knew what a mistake that would be. There was nothing wrong with them, really; they seemed amused by how jumpy she was around them. Not that that was her fault. Any sane person would find them intimidating. 

But finding them intimidating wasn't an excuse for omitting important details, so she finished by saying, "I used my own blood to try and find the magic at the scene. And I found something."

"Something new?"

Sylvester knew her too well. "You could say that. Old, ugly. It stank, it filled up my whole head. And it covered the entire house."

"There's not many creatures who could bend the Sea Witch to their will," the High Queen said. "Fewer still in North America. How are you going to track her?"

"She's my usual tracker, and she's gone," Toby said. "I'm going to go to Walther - he works in chemistry at Berkeley. I'm going to see what he has to say. And then I'm going to work a little magic of my own."

She was grateful they didn't ask her what kind; although, knowing Quentin and Sylvester, everyone there already knew. Her magic was ugly, not really suited for a Court, even one as informal as Sylvester's.

Well, maybe it was suitable for Tybalt's. But the Cait Sidhe played by their own rules.

The High King and Queen left soon after that announcement, leaving Toby to rub her forehead and try not to look too stressed with Sylvester, May, Tybalt, and Quentin all looking at her. "Did you get in touch with Dean?" she asked Tybalt.

"He requests we come to Goldengreen." Tybalt had the particular kind of untroubled expression that meant something was bothering him. "The Duchess of Saltmist has some information for us."

"Guess we'd better be on the move, then."

"One moment." Sylvester nodded, and a brownie brought over a travel mug. Toby could smell the coffee, strong and black, from two feet away. "Take this. You'll need it."

She nodded. "Thanks."

"Clear skies, Toby."

"Open roads." Toby took the mug and led her group's exit.

Once outside, she said, "We can drive to Goldengreen. Tybalt, meet us there?"

"I didn't voice my worries in the Duke's presence, but Toby, Dean did not sound well."

"Maybe he's enchanted." Toby forced herself to sound cheerful. "In which case, we'll definitely know who's behind this. But maybe he has useful information - hopefully he does. Either way, we're going."

"I knew she wouldn't let you argue." May eyed Toby. "Do you want me to do a switcharoo?"

"And pretend to be me? No. Dean's seen me since - you know." Since she changed her blood again, shifted even more towards being fully Faerie, and began looking even less like May. 

"If you're sure."

"Believe me, I'm sure."

"Let's go, then."

Everyone was tense on the drive to Goldengreen. Everyone, that is, except Toby, who was mostly just exhausted. She felt like she'd just done this - risked her life, hunted down a missing person. The fact that life wasn't fair was something she'd known for a long time, but that didn't make it any less frustrating to be presented with hard evidence of that fact.

By the time they got to Goldengreen, the coffee had perked her up a bit. She hopped out of the car and said, "Game faces on, people," rubbing a thumb over the hilt of her knife.

"Looking to stab someone?" May said.

"I like to be prepared."

May laughed and motioned Quentin out of the car. They all walked to the knowe together.

Tybalt was leaning against the tree. "Good to see you."

"We might get some answers here," Toby said. "Maybe. If we're lucky."

"Are we ever?"

"Today might be our day."

"As ever, I live in hope." Tybalt stood by with a flourish. "Let's get to it, then."

Together, they entered the knowe. Toby, at the head of the group, was greeted by an angrily jabbering pixie. She nodded at it and said, "We're looking for Dean."

"I'm here," Dean said, coming out of a room down the nearest hallway. "Toby. It's good to see you."

"But the circumstances are bad, right?"

"My mother's climbing the walls. Or - metaphorically." Dean waved a hand. "She's in here."

Toby gave Tybalt, May and Quentin a warning look, motioning for them to stay, and followed Dean. She wasn't surprised to hear them creeping towards the door; they'd eavesdrop, but they'd stay out. She expected no less. 

"Sir Daye," the Duchess said.

Toby bowed. "Your Grace."

"The Luidaeg has been taken."

Toby did her best not to tense up. "News travels fast, then."

The Duchess looked coolly disdainful, the kind of look Toby didn't think she could nail even if she practiced for weeks. "I didn't get your news from anyone on land. The Luidaeg was the Sea Witch. We felt her absence as she was ripped away."

"Is," Toby said, then winced. Damn it.

"I'm sorry?"

Toby bowed again, stiffly. "I apologize, You Grace. I only meant to point out that for now, at least, she is still the Sea Witch. She's been absent before, hasn't she?"

"She's never been taken." The Duchess looked pale, and it occurred to Toby that, for all her regal disdain, this had to be disturbing for her, too. "But we felt it, as her magic was torn away. Her protection."

Oak and ash. Toby hadn't even thought of that. "Any help we can give you -"

"We can provide for ourselves," the Duchess said. "But - the offer is appreciated."

Toby nodded. "So she was taken."

"By a powerful force, yes."

"How?"

"If I knew that, I'd know where to tell you to go." The Duchess's smile was sad. "I only know that she's gone."

"But she was taken alive?"

"Yes." The Duchess hesitated. "And there is somewhere you can go for more information, if you dare. They know her history more than I, or anyone else in Saltmist."

"The selkies?"

The Duchess visibly started. "You know them?"

"I know some of her history with them. You're serious about this?"

"Deathly so." The Duchess gave her a stern look. "Go to them. Ask them about her past. They'll tell you, if they know you act on her behalf."

Toby really, really, _really_ would have preferred to do a lot of other things, some of which involved torture. If there was a part of the Luidaeg's past that Toby knew the Luidaeg didn't want her poking around in, it was her connection with the Selkies - and, by extension, the Roane. 

But since the Luidaeg wasn't around to threaten Toby with death if she poked into her past, Toby figured she was more or less in the clear.

"Okay," she said. "Good. That's an excellent pointer."

The Duchess nodded. "Keep lines of communication open. I have a vested interest in knowing how this proceeds."

"I'll find her," Toby said. "You have my word."

"I know you will." The Duchess looked away; Toby was dismissed.

She didn't say anything until Dean had said goodbye. Then, when all four of them were standing outside her car, she said, "I assume you heard all of that."

"We didn't -"

"Of course," May said, rolling her eyes at Quentin's objections. "The Selkies, huh?"

"The Selkies." Toby knew she sounded grim, but she couldn't help it. Poking around in the Luidaeg's past might get her killed, even if the resultant chasing after whatever evil had taken the Luidaeg didn't. "We should go there now."

"What took the Luidaeg," Quentin said, buckling his seatbelt. "It was - bad. Wasn't it?"

"Faerie is full of shades of gray," Tybalt said. He relaxed back into the passenger seat, very obviously trying not to seem tense. "You should know that by now, young squire."

"I'm aware," Quentin says. "You didn't see what I saw."

"Which was?"

"Toby, tell him."

Toby was really not in the mood for refereeing fights. But she said, "Look, we all know there's evil in Faerie. Oleander alone was proof of that. What I felt - it was old, and didn't have any of our best interests in mind. Good enough, right?"

"Indeed." Tybalt shifted a little. "I won't be accompanying you to see the Selkies."

"Oh?"

"We're not on terribly good terms."

"Cats and seals don't get along?"

"You should know well enough, little fish."

Toby glanced in the rearview mirror to see May making faces. "Not in front of the kids, Tybalt."

Tybalt smiled lazily. "I'll come as soon as you're finished with them. Hopefully they'll give you some clue of where to search next."

They'd only been doing this for a few hours, and Toby was already experiencing the creeping feeling that this was going to end in a trip to another realm. Possibly a one-way trip. There was no way she was going to say that out loud, though, so she just said, "Here's hoping."

Later, she'd be angry with herself for not thinking about Connor until they were walking down the sloped beach, towards a cluster of houses in an area not technically part of the human world. As soon as she thought of him, she almost tripped over her own feet, guilt suffusing her.

"They won't be angry with you," May said, catching her elbow. "And they will help you."

"How do you know?"

"Well, for starters, everyone's heard of you. Even them. So you're getting off on the right foot. Kind of."

"I got one of them killed."

"And you caught Rayselline using a skin," Quentin said. "And now you're going to track down their - what is the Luidaeg to them, anyway? Protector?"

There was no way Toby was betraying that confidence. She said, "Something like that," and they continued walking.

Just before they got to the houses, they ran into an invisible barrier. A young woman - or someone in a young woman's body, anyway - came out from behind a huge boulder to look at them calmly. "You'll need to take off your shoes."

"I'm sorry."

"Your shoes," she said. "We're not fond of them, and you're getting sand in them, anyway." She smiled at them, a lopsided sort of motion. "Sorry. House rules."

"Technically, we're not entering a house," May said. She unlaced her boots.

"She's right." Toby kicked her sneakers off, tucking them against the boulder with May's boots and Quentin's sneakers. "There. Better?"

"Much," she said. "This way."

"I never got your name."

The woman glanced back at them. "Call me Anne," she said after a ponderous silence. "My mother is waiting."

Toby glanced back at May and Quentin. They both looked ready to attack, which was roughly what Toby needed from them. Selkies were, in a way, another kind of changeling; that didn't mean Toby trusted these people not to do them harm.

Anne led them into one of the larger houses. It was perched on a dune, and the sea-salt breeze smell permeated the air around them. "This is my mother, Katrina."

Katrina had dark skin and light eyes. She rose to meet them, but only nodded her head in greeting. "Please, sit," she said. "You must be Sir Daye."

"Did you know I was coming?"

"We felt her leave." Katrina didn't look directly at Toby; she looked over Toby's shoulder, expression distant. It was creepy in a way that made Toby want coffee, and her knife to be out. "Her resentment hangs over us, as a cloud about to storm. In one breath, it was gone."

"That must be a relief for you, then," Toby said. "How is this supposed to help me?"

"The resentment is our birthright." Katrina steepled her fingers, finally looking directly at Toby. "Our heritage is her anger. Without it, we are adrift, a ship in an unfamiliar ocean."

Toby wasn't so sure about all the flowery language; Katrina was talking around the actual problem. Toby drummed her fingers on the table before saying, "I think you know more than you're telling me."

Katrina raised her eyebrows and didn't answer.

"All this talk about clouds and ships - you know her. Your history and hers, it's intertwined. You know who might've taken her."

"We have ideas," Katrina said. "We heard whispering in the ocean before she was taken. The return of an old one. Vinegar in our waters."

"Vinegar?"

"And sugar." Katrina sighed. "Nothing about Faerie is straightforward, as you well know. All we have are signs and portents. But we do know that something old took her. Something very old."

"That much, I knew." Toby was restraining the urge to be sarcastic so much it hurt a little. "You're going to have to give me a little more than that."

"We cannot tell you where she went." Katrina turned her hand over so that her palm was showing. "But we can help you track her."

Toby looked down at Katrina's hand. In the center of the palm was a glowing symbol, intertwined lines forming waves against what Toby assumed was a rock. "Please tell me I don't have to take one of you with me."

"Have you heard of the Hand of Glory?"

Great. This was just great. "I have. The severed hand of a criminal, holding a candle made from the fat of the hanged body. Kind of grisly. Definitely not Fae."

"We were not Faerie, originally," Katrina said. "We have never had cause to use it, but the first of our kind was struck down. He has no candle, but his remains will guide you to the Sea Witch."

"So I have to carry a severed hand around?" Toby would do it, of course, but she wanted to be absolutely sure that was what was required.

"No. We're not so macabre as that." Katrina pulled something out of her pocket and set it down on the table.

It was the ugliest necklace Toby had ever seen: large and round, with diamonds running around the edges of a huge, gray jewel. "His ashes," Katrina said. "They're drawn to the Sea Witch, to her resentment and refusal to forgive. They will guide you to her."

Toby didn't know what to say. It was far from the most macabre thing she'd ever done, and if it would help, then she couldn't really turn it down. Finally she just said, "I'll bring her back to you."

"So we hope."

Toby took the necklace. "I might go to other realms. Searching for her."

"That would be an interesting trick, indeed." Katrina stood. "Clear skies."

"Still waters," Toby said. An Undersea twist on the usual farewell.

May waited to talk until they were outside the Selkies' almost-knowe. "That was…"

"Weird," Toby said. "Believe me, I know."

"But this dead guy can lead us to her?"

"That does seem to be the plan. I'm surprised they didn't leave him for the night haunts."

"Selkies don't really do things the traditional way."

May sounded grim, and no wonder; she was a night haunt, and had to know at least most of the story. Toby wasn't interested in keeping secrets when the Luidaeg could be dead or tortured, but she knew - she knew this wasn't her story to tell. So she told Quentin, doing her best to be careful, "The Selkies took something from the Luidaeg. Long ago."

"Ah," Quentin said. 

"It hurt her." Toby patted the pocket the necklace was in. "But with this...with this, we might be able to help her."

"Good," Quentin said. "That's all I really care about."

Toby bumped against him as they opened her car doors. "I know, kid."

They rendezvoused with Tybalt back at Toby's house. "We got a tracking device," she said. "The only problem is, I don't exactly know where to start tracking her."

"The Shadow Roads are limited," he said. He looked pained, like he already knew what Toby was going to try. "I'm not sure -"

"That wouldn't help," Toby said. "Even if I asked you to."

"I would do it if you asked it of me."

"I know. All the more reason for you to not." Toby shook her head. "No. This is on me."

"You're going to use more creepy Amandine magic," Quentin said.

"It's not -"

"She was - is - Firstborn," Tybalt said. "It's hard to avoid the truth. It is her magic, though I will admit, you give it your own special flair."

"Right." Toby wasn't interested in arguing semantics. "To answer your question, Quentin, yes. I am going to be using creepy Amandine magic." 

"Safely, though."

There was a hint of accusation in Quentin's voice that Toby couldn't really blame him for. Unfortunately, she also couldn't assuage his worry. "As safely as I know how," she said. "Now. There's a tarp in the storage room, right? I'm going to need that."

"What a promising statement," Tybalt said.

"Quentin, come help me get the tarp," May said, her voice bright enough that Toby knew she was putting it on. "Give the lovebirds here some special alone time."

They left. As soon as they'd turned their backs, Tybalt was close to her, touching her chin. "You know I don't like this."

"I don't either," Toby said. "But it's what I have to do."

"Of that, I'm well aware. You always do what you must."

"I can't let her go," Toby said. "I have to hunt for her. She told me not to. But I have to. I'm going to find her."

"I know, little fish." Tybalt leaned in and kissed her, slowly, until it felt like he was drawing some of her fear out. "And we will follow you."

"I'd prefer you didn't."

"You're not a lone hero anymore, October." He stroked the side of her face; she touched his shoulder, his back, trying to get some kind of anchor. "Work your magic. Find us a trail. Then we'll follow it."

She nodded - and then, hearing May and Quentin, stepped away. "Coffee," she said. "Coffee before the bloody ritual."

"If only you were misappropriating English slang," Tybalt said. "There's coffee in the carafe."

Twenty minutes later, Toby was feeling as ready for the ritual as she'd ever feel. As she sat down on the tarp - which was placed as far away from the furniture as humanly possible - May said, "I don't suppose you have a roadmap for what you're about to do."

"Nope," Toby said, and brought her steel knife out, cutting her palm from end to end.

The scent of blood filled the air, and with it, Toby felt her identity settling within her. Not Daoine Sidhe, but her mother's daughter; Dochas Sidhe, the blood ringing through her with ever-increasing clarity.

She felt the murmuring in her own veins, the magic trying to tug her more towards Faerie. Someday - someday, she thought, she might let it. Someday she might _have_ to let it. But today wasn't that day.

Today, she had to find the Luidaeg. She pulled the necklace out of her pocket and smeared blood on it; it was an inelegant but effective way of drawing the magic out. She felt the rage and pain, uniquely the Luidaeg's - old, but familiar to Toby. 

"Tell me where you went," she whispered.

For a second, nothing happened. But then Toby felt the tug of magic - vicious, wild magic - and her focus shifted.

A plain in the middle of two mountain ranges. Unfamiliar stars overhead. Toby squinted to confirm what she could barely see: a castle of some sort, carved into the mountains far away.

"Where am I?" she asked the wind -

And she was catapulted back into her body with a force that left her gasping.

"Well," she said. That hadn't been helpful. Another realm, another place - but where? How could they get there?

The amulet glowed, and a man's whisper came to her, so quiet she could barely hear: _ask the liar._

"The liar? Who's the liar?"

_Ask the liar._

"Thanks," Toby said. "That's helpful. And you don't care to elaborate more?"

_Fake fox, false wife, liar. Ask the liar. Ask the liar._

Toby sighed. "I guess that's it, then," she said, and ended the spell.

"Well?" May said. "What's up?"

"I have to ask someone," Toby said. "The liar, it said. Fake fox?"

May inhaled sharply - and just like that, things fell into place for Toby. "Luna."

"My impression is you two aren't exactly on speaking terms," Tybalt said. "Is there any other option?"

Toby wished to Oberon there was, but she knew better than to get her hopes up. "No," she said. "Well, maybe, but that's what the amulet says we should do, and for now, I'm going to listen to it. We need to go to Shadowed Hills."

"I'll get Jazz," May said.

"Why?" Quentin said. "What can she do?"

"Luna's Kitsune - or pretends to be, anyway." May shrugged. "They're friendly, apparently."

"Right." Toby blinked. "Okay. So - we go to Shadowed Hills."

"I will speak to her, if you need me to," Tybalt said.

He looked coiled, ready to spring. Toby shook her head. "Appreciated, but no. I'll talk to her."

"She sent you to your death."

"Bygones," Toby said. She looked down at her hand and winced. "Okay: first things first. I need to clean up."

_The Luidaeg_

She missed the realms that had been closed off, the realms beyond Faerie's knowledge. Realms that had been closed, realms that had only ever really existed in esoteric imagination to begin with.

Once she had traveled among them. Once she had been a guide, sitting along the side of the road and directing travelers, with useful words and clever misdirection. Once -

But now, it was empty. Now, she was alone.

The sand was gritty beneath her back. The waves were loud, lapping against the left side of her body. She smiled, spat out blood, and said: "So you've come for me, then?"

A cawing noise, then the light tinkle of bells. The nothing.

"You won't get what you want," she told the darkness. 

_I think I will_. The voice sounded like the breeze, like a flute through the woods.

The Luidaeg spat blood out of her mouth and sneered into the dark. "You definitely won't, sweetheart. Trust me."

 _Sleep now,_ the voice said.

She tried to protest, but she was pushed into darkness, her body crying out in pain.

 

_Toby_

She didn't want to talk to Luna. There were plenty of things she'd prefer to do, other than talking to Luna; if she was being honest, she could make a list as long as her leg. She could die of old age before running out of things she'd rather do than talk to Luna. But she wasn't a child, and the amulet had clearly instructed her to talk to Luna. Crazy though that may seem, Toby wasn't going to just ignore the instruction: she was going to talk to Luna.

Talk to Luna, talk to Luna, talk to Luna. It was certainly an idea that took some getting used to.

There was no sense in delaying. Once they'd cleaned up and her hand was healed, she turned to Tybalt and said, "You should go back to your Court. Once I figure out where we need to go, I'll call you."

He frowned at her. "I don't like this."

"I'm well aware," she said. "But this is what we need to do. May and Jazz will be with me. And I'm safe in Shadowed Hills."

"October -"

"I'm safe," she said. She leaned up and kissed him, briefly. "Go."

He glared, but opened the shadows and disappeared into them. She took a deep breath, then said, "Okay. No point in putting this off. Let's go."

"Jazz will meet us there," May said.

"Excellent." They went out to the car and piled in. Toby drove as quickly as she reasonably could.

Sylvester's face fell when he saw them. "This can't be good news."

"We actually do have - well. We have news," Toby said. "The Selkies gave us a tracking necklace. I asked it some questions -"

"You asked a necklace questions?"

"She's a prodigy these days," May said. She was holding Jazz's hand tightly.

"Long story short, it told me to talk to Luna," Toby said. 

Sylvester's face went very, very still. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"That makes two of us," Toby said. "But it's my only lead, and the Luidaeg being gone is something San Francisco needs as little of as possible."

"I understand that time is of the essence, but Toby -"

"We told her," Quentin said. Apparently undaunted by Sylvester's stare, he continued, "We told her it was a bad idea."

"Interruptions aside, he's telling the truth," Toby said. "They all told me."

"Isn't there someone you can talk to? Etienne? Walther?"

"Neither of them have Luna's power," Toby said. "And - even my mother doesn't know as much about moving between the realms. If we're going to one of the Inner Realms, Luna's our best bet at getting there and back safely."

"I love my wife," Sylvester said. "But I will take this moment to remind you that she didn't want you to come back last time."

"Didn't expect it, anyway," Toby said. "I know that. But I have to do this."

She held Sylvester's gaze, feeling like an idiot. She hated throwing herself on his mercy, hated feeling scared of Luna, who she'd loved for so many years. She hated everything about this. But it was her job, and the Luidaeg deserved a rescue. Even if she didn't want one.

Sylvester searched her eyes. Whatever he found in them made him sigh. "Very well," he said. "I'll take you to her."

Luna wasn't in her garden, like Toby'd half-expected. She was sitting in one of Sylvester's gardens, with all kinds of flowers in sight - except roses. 

Luna looked at Toby, then at the people flanking her. Jazz was the one who stepped forward. "It's good to see you," she said.

"I'd hoped you wouldn't use your connection with me like this," Luna said.

Jazz wasn't daunted. "I wouldn't, were this not an emergency. But it is, and - here we are."

Luna looked past Jazz. "Toby, you can stay. Quentin, May - you two leave."

"I'm sensing a trend," May said. "C'mon, Quentin. We'll have to wait to be filled in."

When they were gone, Luna motioned at the bench next to her seat. "Sit."

They sat.

"You've come to ask me how to enter the Inner Realms."

"Unfortunately," Toby said.

"You have knowledge we don't," Jazz said. "I've asked my kind, and no one knows. Even the cats don't know."

"If they did, Tybalt would have told Toby." Luna smiled, her expression distant. "Once again, I am your last resort."

"I know it can't be done, or shouldn't be," Toby said. "But someone tore the realms open and took the Luidaeg. I need to get her back."

"Only an Old One could do that," Luna said. "I'm not even sure my father would have been capable of opening the realms. They were sealed by Oberon himself."

Toby felt the old tug of fear in the pit of her stomach. She did her best to ignore it, saying, "All the more reason to deal with whoever opened them."

Luna's eyes were unsettling when they focused on Toby. "You really think you can do that?"

Toby shrugged, deliberately casual. "I think I have to try."

"You'll fail, and die somewhere even Tybalt can't retrieve your body from."

"Every job has risks."

Jazz cut through the mounting tension between Toby and Luna with an ease Toby envied. "Do you think it was an Old One who took the Luidaeg?"

"I doubt it," Luna said. She looked away from Toby, expression warming noticeably when she spoke with Jazz. "It could be someone stealing magic from other Fae. It could be a monster from the Inner Realms. It could even be Amandine. But the Old Ones are gone. It's not them."

She spoke with quiet authority, and Toby wanted to believe her. But she wasn't going to accept that something was impossible - not now, when she'd had so many experiences that should have been impossible, but weren't. "Are you recommending I try to find my mother?"

Luna's laugh was sharp. "I would never suggest that."

"Can you open a road for us?" Jazz said. "I would be in your debt."

"I cannot." Luna pointed a finger at Toby. "But she can."

Toby tensed. "You think that's a good idea?"

"My power is sapped," Luna said. "And the Rose Road will not take you where you need to travel. But we're cousins, Toby, much though you'd like to forget that. You can do what I can, if you use your magic correctly."

"And no one's around to teach me how."

"Focus on the Luidaeg. Use that amulet."

Toby's hand went to her pocket. "How -"

"It radiates power. Use it to open the road you need."

Toby really wasn't looking forward to getting up close and personal with a dead Selkie's ashes again. But she said, "I will, then," and stood.

"Thank you," Jazz said. Toby sent her a sharp look, but both Jazz and Luna looked unruffled.

"Find her," Luna said. "She was my aunt. I'd like to see her again."

Not enough to not use the past tense, Toby thought. Out loud, she said, "We will."

They left in silence. Toby was turning over her options in her mind. There was so much to do - but she had the creeping suspicion that once she opened the road, she wouldn't get much of a choice about following it. After explaining everything to May and Quentin, she said, "How do you feel about camping?"

"Camping?" Quentin wrinkled his nose. "On the ground?"

"We're going to be traveling," Toby said. "Maybe for awhile."

"So we need supplies," May said. "Right. Do you want us to go to a sporting goods store?"

Quentin looked appalled. "Magic -"

"Is something we'll need when we confront whatever's taken the Luidaeg," Toby said. "No arguments. We're going to see Walther about some ointment, and then we're going to buy a tent."

"And food?" May said. "Supplies?"

"That's what we're seeing Walther about," Toby said. "And - if this lasts awhile, hopefully we'll be able to hunt. But we can buy energy bars, at least."

"This all sounds pretty human," Quentin said.

"It does," Toby said. "But sometimes the only way to survive in Faerie is to deviate from the norm. When I open up a road, that'll be it. So Quentin, Jazz, you get us a tent, some blankets, and some meal bars. May, you're coming with me to Walther's." She took a deep breath. "Quentin, get Raj to tell Tybalt to come back to my house. I'm going to open the road as soon as we're back."

"You still don't know how to, do you?" 

She frowned at him. "I'll figure it out. Go."

May was quiet until they were back in the car, at which point, she said, "Quentin's right, you know. This does sound awfully human."

"I grew up a changeling. I live in the human world." Toby shrugged, pulling into traffic. "It's what I know."

The gray light of pre-dawn was already showing on the horizon. May tapped the window and said, "If it were Luna, she'd be getting some enchanted spider silk for a shelter. Maybe some flowers for food."

"I'm not Luna. I'm not Arden or April, either. I can only be who I am." Toby shook her head, trying to dispel how tired she suddenly felt. "Most of the time, I just don't sleep. But if we're really going to travel into the Inner Realms, that's probably not an option."

"Believe me, I'm aware," May said. "But it might be time for some spider silk. That's all."

"Don't worry." Toby sped up a little; they needed to make it to Berkeley before Walther took his usual four hours of sleep. "If we really need magic, I'll just open a vein."

"Hah, hah."

Toby wasn't kidding. But she knew she didn't need to say that out loud.

They got to Walther's chem lab just as he was leaving. When he saw them, his face fell, and he pulled his keys back out.

"I could have good news," Toby said, following him into the lab.

"You never do when you show up looking like that." Walther looked between them. "This is about the Luidaeg, isn't it."

"How'd you know?"

"Word travels fast, especially when enchantments get yanked away like that." Walther turned on the lights, going over to his table. "You're going to find her?"

"How do you know she's not dead?" May said.

Walther snorted. "Taking the Luidaeg and leaving hardly a trace makes sense. Anything that could kill her would have to level five blocks to do it."

That was actually a really good point. Toby said, "Yeah. So - I'm opening a road to take us into the Inner Realms."

Walther blinked, then stared, then blinked again. "Excuse me?"

Toby crossed her arms and waited.

"That should be impossible," Walther said.

"Should be?"

"I know you. I'm not going to say it's impossible." Walther looked around at his supplies. "I have some ointment for wounds, some anti-enchantment powder...ah. Here we go." He picked up a bag. "It would take me days to develop something for you specifically, and we don't have that. But this stone will amplify your power."

He handed the bag to Toby. She pulled out the stone. It was dark, blood-red - literally. She could smell the blood. "What did you do to this?"

"Just a little animal sacrifice. It's keyed to you. I've been working on it for awhile."

She put the stone back in the bag, feeling overwhelmed. "Walther -"

"Don't," he said. "Just take more than one weapon and keep your eyes on the road." He handed them tins of ointment and bags of powder. "You've taken the Rose Road, right?"

Toby nodded. "I don't know what road I'll manage to open. Probably not that one."

"The Blood Road will kill you," Walther said. "Well, maybe not you, but certainly your party. But the rules for each of them are mostly the same. Don't look back, and don't stray from the path. If you have to, get that powder in your eyes. It'll keep you from seeing things that might tempt you away."

Toby nodded. "And find a two-way road."

Walther shook his head. "I thought that one was implied. Come back to us, Toby."

"You know me," Toby said.

"That's why I'm worried.

She laughed weakly and left. Walther was right, and she knew it - she wasn't going to pretend she didn't.

At the very least, she'd send the Luidaeg back. One way or another.

 

"A tent?" Tybalt said, raising his eyebrows.

Everyone was assembled in the living room - May, Quentin, Tybalt, and - surprisingly - Jazz. When Toby had looked askance at her, May'd said, "Where I go, Jazz goes." Toby hadn't realized it was really that serious, but she wasn't going to object to another person to help out.

"A tent," Toby said. "And provisions. We're not half-assing this."

"I didn't think we would...half-ass it." Tybalt said the human profanity with hilarious delicacy. "But this all seems a bit human, don't you think?"

"The Luidaeg lived in the human world, used human curses, and did both those things for centuries. Maybe we could use a little human."

Toby stared at all of them, half expecting someone to bring up her rapidly decreasing human heritage. But no one did. Toby nodded finally, and said, "I have to open up a road now."

"Should we all stand back?" Tybalt's amusement looked mostly genuine. 

"If you want," Toby said, and opened the vein at her arm.

Blood dripped onto the wooden floor, forming an ever-widening circle. Toby screwed her eyes shut and concentrated, feeling the power circle around her. Smells became sharper, sounds became louder. But that wasn't what she was after. She needed to feel the creases of this realm, open them up to travel. She needed the blood road.

It felt like she should be talking, so she smeared her fingers in blood and ran them over her lips. The tang felt good, felt right; the words that came from her then weren't entirely her own. "I am the daughter of Amandine, the granddaughter of Maeve. Dochas Sidhe. Blood is my birth and my right; the blood that runs through my veins created Faerie. The blood road is my home, and I travel on it freely. By right of birth, by right of blood, by right of rule. Open the door."

"Do you think she said blood enough times?" Quentin muttered. Toby would have laughed, but suddenly, power rushed through her. It smelled like old blood, coppery and rotting, and when Toby opened her eyes, she saw a road opening up into the air in front of her.

The road was a dull rust; the trees and twisted plants leaning in on either side were in varying shades of red. No one would ever accuse Faerie of missing a chance to be cliched.

"Well," she said as they stared at the road. "I'll go out on a limb and say that worked."

"Well spotted," Tybalt said. "I suppose we'd better go, then."

For a second, Toby had a moment of screaming uncertainty. But it only lasted for a moment, and then it was gone. Toby was going to do what she had to.

She always did.

"Let's go," she said, and led the way onto the road.

____

Toby assumed everyone knew the rules already, but to be sure, she said, "We can only move forward, not back. Even if you drop the most important thing to you in the world, we can't go back for it. Don't stray from the path. Put this ointment around your eyes, and it'll help keep the enchantments at bay."

"Like we're changelings," May said with a certain amount of delight, taking the ointment from Toby.

Toby wasn't sure how to reply to that, so she didn't. "I don't know where the Luidaeg is. But…" She pulled the amulet out of her jacket. It glowed softly. "This should help."

Tybalt was watching her closely. Six months ago, he would have been an enigma to her. Honesty in a relationship was an amazing thing, because now she knew exactly what he was thinking.

She was Amandine's daughter, after all. And she was now strong enough to open a road no one had traveled on in centuries. 

"Let's get going, then," May said. She led the way, Jazz's hand in hers, a bounce in her step.

Toby wondered how long that would last. She sighed and motioned Quentin to go ahead. She and Tybalt would bring up the rear.

Tybalt slowed until they had just enough distance from everyone else for him to not be overheard when he said, "That was an impressive bit of magic you worked. Are you tired?"

Toby kept her eyes on the road ahead. "You know I'm not."

His hand was a dull red when he took Toby's, the not-quite-sky overhead casting dim light. "I know you'll need to save your strength for whatever took the Sea Witch."

Something about the way he said it bothered Toby. She thought about it for a few minutes as they walked, until it occurred to her: "You think you know who took her, don't you?"

"I have...ideas," Tybalt said.

Toby narrowed her eyes. "How about you share."

"The Sea Witch is the daughter of the Old Ones, and too powerful to be taken by any one creature," Tybalt said. "And yet you felt only one stench at her home. One creature took her."

"That's circular logic."

"I'm a cat," Tybalt said with a hint of a smile. "She's a daughter of the Old Ones. Therefore, there's one type of being in all of Faerie who should be able to overpower her."

Toby should have thought about it. Toby thought maybe she was trying not to think about it. "You think one of the Old Ones took her."

"I do."

"But they're lost." Toby concentrated on the dark road under her feet, taking one step at a time. "I mean, they're - they're practically legend at this point?"

"All legends once walked the earth."

"We'll have to disagree on that," Toby said. "Okay, so an Old One took her. Do we know which one?"

"She's a daughter of Maeve."

"Which in Faerie, is a great way to argue for Maeve taking her, or Maeve protecting her." Toby sighed. "I don't think I can kill an Old One."

"I wouldn't recommend it."

"But you think I'll try."

"Toby, my darling." There was a heavy sadness in Tybalt's voice. Toby hated causing it, but she didn't know what else she was supposed to do. "I know you'll try."

Oak and ash. "I'm sorry."

"No need to apologize." Tybalt squeezed her hand. "You are what we made you."

'We'. Faerie. Toby didn't answer; she quickened her speed a little, Tybalt moving with her easily as she went closer to Quentin.

There were no days here, and no meaningful nights, either. The light didn't wax or wane. Toby thought the amulet might be getting a little stronger, but there was no reason to expect they'd find the Luidaeg tonight. Maybe tomorrow, or the next day; or maybe they'd get off the blood road and have to wander a realm to find her. Toby'd given up on expecting time in Faerie to really make sense.

The fact that there were no days didn't mean they didn't get tired. They stopped eventually, pitching the tent and eating some of the meal bars.

"When we get off the road, we can hunt," Quentin said.

"I'm not sure we'll be able to kill beasts of the Inner Realms," Toby said. 

"You can kill anything." Quentin grinned at her. In the red light, it looked ghoulish. 

Toby very carefully didn't look at Tybalt. "Sure I can."

Her sleep was restless and unfulfilling. They packed up mostly without speaking the next morning, Toby heating water on the camp stove so she could have instant coffee that tasted like sludge. They'd been walking for what felt like hours when a warmth in her jacket surprised her.

"Guys," she said, holding up a hand. Everyone stopped.

She pulled out the amulet. It was warm and glowing strongly.

She took several steps forward; the glow increased.

"How do we get _off_ the road?" Quentin said.

"I'll have to open a door," Toby said. "The blood road isn't one you can just stray from."

"No off-ramps, huh?" May said. 

Toby shook her head, even though she knew May's question had been rhetorical. "Faerie punishes those who stray. Come on. Let's go."

They kept walking. The amulet kept getting brighter, in tiny increments. After hours, Toby's legs felt tired and she was ready to call it a day - but just as she was about to make the call, the amulet started vibrating, ever so slightly.

"Here," Toby said, stopping. She looked off the path, almost for the first time since they'd gotten on it. There were tangled trees and...something...beyond them, hissing and twisting in the reddish darkness.

She shuddered and pulled out her knife, slicing her hand. She barely registered the pain as she lifted her hand and drew a doorway in blood.

It hung in midair, the blood not even dripping. Creepy. She finished drawing and said, "Take us where we need to go."

Silently, the door swung inward.

Toby looked into it as far as she could. It was day in whatever realm this was. But it was definitely a fairy realm - a red planet hung low on the horizon, and the tiny pixies that flew over the large purple flowers were definitely not something that belonged in the human world.

"Let's go," she said. One by one, they went through the door.

Toby should have expected it, but the pain when the door closed took her by surprise. She let out a grunt, biting back a scream; who knew what might hear them? When she fell to her knees, Tybalt was at her side instantly.

She lifted a hand she didn't remember putting on her midsection. It was covered in blood, soaking through her shirt. She lifted her shirt and looked at the deep cut, already healing slowly.

"I'll be fine," she said. They were standing in a prairie, so vast she couldn't see the end of it; the sky overhead was streaked pink, orange, and red, with no sun in sight. "Anyone want to venture a guess as to where we are?"

"Dewerder," Tybalt said.

Toby blinked. She wasn't exactly expecting an answer. "Okay," she said. "Mind telling me how you know this?"

Tybalt pointed to a spot on the horizon, something Toby had assumed was a hill. "Unless I am very wrong, that is a small dragon."

"Bravery," May said quietly. "That's what Dewerder means. Faerie will kill you."

"I knew _that_ ," Toby said. Better than the full-blooded Fae, she didn't add. "I guess we should -"

The amulet gave a massive tug. Toby, surprised, stumbled with it; when she pulled it out of her pocket, it gently tugged her in the opposite of the maybe-dragon, down one of the many worn-out paths criss-crossing the prairie. 

"Let's go, gang," she said.

She'd been a little busy in Annwn, too busy to notice the magic teeming around them in a true realm of Faerie. Or maybe - well, she wasn't going to think about what changing her blood again might have done to her magic. But the thought whispered in the corner of her mind, insidious, that her growing power might be more seductive than her humanity.

Toby assumed Dewerder was going to try to kill them. No realm named 'Bravery' - and she did recognize the name now, Tybalt jogging her memories from the Summerlands, Amandine talking about the Inner Realms - was going to be a walk in the park. She kept her free hand on her knife as they walked, guided by the now-gentle tugging of the amulet.

She'd been right about the sky; there was no sun here, and the light neither waxed nor waned. Toby felt like she was in a game of chicken with everyone else, walking until she got tired, and then walking some more because no one else was suggesting they stop. It was Quentin who finally said, "Look, a tree."

They'd passed a few of them. Toby stopped and turned to give Quentin an "And?" look.

"We should get some sleep," Quentin said. "I think -" he flexed his fingers. "I think I could make us a shelter for the night."

"Any of us could," Tybalt said. "Even Toby."

"Hey."

"Dewerder is close to the center of it all," Tybalt said. He smiled at Toby, wide and smug. "Our power increases as we grow closer."

"Kind of makes you wonder how whatever-it-is is holding the Luidaeg," Toby said.

"We already knew it's more powerful," May said. "This is just - confirmation."

Toby didn't shiver, but it was a near thing. There was something that wasn't fun to think about.

"Either way," she said, "we should rest. Quentin, do you want to do the honors?"

The scent of Quentin's magic rose in the air. Blades of grass twisted and built on one another until a small, curved structure stood under the tree.

"Anyone want to start a fire?" he said, smiling like he wasn't sure he was allowed to be proud.

"On it," May said.

A few minutes later, they were sitting around a fire, eating meal bars. Toby watched a rabbit hop by and said, "We should hunt tomorrow."

Everyone else was silent until Tybalt said, "I'm not sure that's a good idea, little fish."

Toby frowned, trying to formulate what she wanted to say. She knew it was a good idea - or, she knew it was something they had to do, which was almost the same thing. "We're on a quest," she said finally. "We don't know if where we go will have food. Here does. We should take advantage of it."

"I can hunt," Jazz said. She hadn't talked much, and the gravity of the conversation shifted to her since she'd chosen to break her silence. "With beak and claw."

"I can hunt," May said. She didn't need to elaborate how for everyone to look mildly disturbed.

"I can hunt," Tybalt said. He sounded like he couldn't care less whether he did or not. "As you well know."

"I grew up in a city," Quentin said, sounding apologetic.

Toby felt a smile stretching her lips. "You and me are Dochas and Daoine Sidhe," she said. "We don't need claws or a knife. We just need blood."

It was hard to tell by the oddly colored light, but Toby thought Quentin might have gone a little pale.

"That's settled, then," she said. "Good job, everyone. We'll sleep and kill ourselves some food before we continue."

"It'll slow us down," May said. "Not that that's an argument against doing it."

"We need to be ready," Toby said. "This will help."

She said it with as much conviction as she could muster, which admittedly wasn't that much. But apparently it convinced everyone else, because they nodded and went about the business of getting ready to sleep.

Toby and Tybalt had been sleeping next to each other, but they rarely spoke, even though Toby knew Tybalt was having as much trouble falling asleep as she was. That night, Tybalt lay down next to her and took her hand, squeezing it tightly. It was as much comfort as Toby knew he was going to offer - and as much as she wanted him to. She stroked her thumb over his palm and leaned into him, very slightly, falling asleep breathing his pennyroyal and musk smell.

The next day, they got up and disbanded to hunt. They were coming to the edge of the prairie - there were trees in the distance, and elk and rabbits everywhere. Toby and Quentin went towards the treeline, about a hundred feet away from their camping site.

"What are we going to do?" Quentin said.

"We're going to call the animals to us," Toby said. She held out her knife and a stick. "Spill this."

Quentin eyed her suspiciously. "Do you know what you're doing?"

"Not particularly," Toby said. "Why?"

"No reason," he said, and cut his hand. 

His blood soaked into the bark of the branch. Toby felt its power sing as she cut herself and bled.

"Feel the world around you," Toby said. 

Quentin sighed, but obeyed. "What is this…oh."

Toby could feel the life around them - more accurately, the blood thumping through the animals' veins. She said, "There's a rabbit nearby."

"Some rabbit," Quentin said. It was eating grass with razor-sharp teeth, and sported long claws.

"Let's call him," Toby said.

They did. Quentin was the one who slit its throat, looking surprisingly calm.

"This should be enough," Toby said. "There were nuts under the tree, and...ah." She knelt.

"Mushrooms?" Quentin said. "Is that a good idea?"

Toby touched them, blood still flaking on her fingers. "These are fine," she said. They carried with them the memory of Daoine Sidhe harvesting them, a generational memory winding through their tissue.

"This is a little scary," Quentin said, almost conversationally.

That made Toby laugh. "Welcome to Faerie," she said, and gathered some of the mushrooms, putting them in her Albertson's canvas bag.

Everyone brought back meat, which made Toby realize she'd maybe been a little less-than-optimistic about their hunting chances. They put the three rabbits and two birds on spits and then put the mushrooms and various other wild plants in their single skillet. Stir-fry, Faerie quest style.

No one said anything until the last burned bits of rabbit had been scraped off the skewer. Finally, May said, "I don't suppose anyone brought an alarm clock?"

"We'll sleep however long we sleep," Toby said. 

"Thanks, Toby. Very deep."

She narrowed her eyes at May. "What I mean is, we need sleep. For what's coming."

"This can't be the end," Jazz said. "Not now, not here."

"Hopefully not." Toby shrugged. "I try not to think of things like that. All I know is we have a job to do, and we'll want to be well-rested to do it."

For a second she thought Jazz was going to challenge her, and she was just - not ready for that particular argument just then. But then May said, "Well, we heard the lady," and they all began preparations to rest.

May was helpful like that. Toby was tired enough to feel deeply grateful.

She woke up long before everyone else; she was pretty sure she hadn't slept more than four hours. She ducked out from under Tybalt's arm and walked away from the camp - only about a hundred feet, but enough to make the tension in her chest ease a little.

"Where are you, Luidaeg?" she muttered. "How am I going to find you?"

The amulet was warm in her hand, but not any warmer than it had been when they stopped. There was no reason for the world to answer - this was Faerie, not a movie with special signs and communication from beyond. But she'd hoped, just for a minute, that an answer might drop out of the sky.

Not that it was ever - literally ever - the way things worked for her.

She wished she could sit and brood until the sun came up, but the orange-streaked sky didn't show a sign of what time of day it was. So eventually she went back to the camp and lay back down with Tybalt, sighing and turning so she was facing him.

He was looking at her. Of course he was.

"Trouble sleeping?"

HIs voice was so quiet that she barely heard it. But she nodded. "Just the usual, you know. Doom and gloom, expecting the world to end. Nothing major."

"Jazz seems confident enough that it will not end. Not for now, anyway."

Toby pitched her voice low enough that she was reasonably sure no one else would be able to heard. "And I'm not confident in Jazz. Not that, anyway."

"You must suspect who's taken the witch."

Toby did. Oak and ash, she did, even if she didn't want to. "The Old Ones have been sealed away," she said. "It should be someone else's problem, but -"

"You think one of them is acting in opposition to the others?"

"I think no one's ever met them - no one who's talking, anyway."

"The Sea Witch has."

"And now she's gone," Toby said. "Who else am I going to ask? Mom?"

"She does seem as though she'd be difficult to get ahold of."

"Because she would," Toby said. "If anyone could find her, she'd probably just - give us a riddle and disappear again."

"I was angry," Tybalt said. His voice was soft suddenly, silky. The memory of a threat more than a threat itself. "Before. When I left to discover your heritage, I assumed you were lying to me."

"I know," Toby said. "Believe me, we don't need to revisit that."

Tybalt ignored her. "I searched archives and family trees. Libraries, and the minds of the older members of the Sidhe."

"Great," Toby said. "Mind telling me what this has to do with the Luidaeg?"

"I encountered not a whisper of the Old Ones," Tybalt said. "The truth of your heritage - that Amandine is Firstborn - that was knowledge that existed in several places, including the Court of the High King and the genealogies in the Libraries. But the Old Ones just disappeared. No one knows where they went, or why."

"I knew someone would have to find them." Toby remembered thinking it more than once - but she'd always told herself, firmly, that it was someone else's problem. "Why does it have to be me?"

"My dear, it always has to be you." He kissed her neck. "Get some rest. We have a long way to walk when everyone else starts waking up."

Toby closed her eyes and did her best to follow instructions, worry lurking in her mind even as she drifted off to sleep. When she woke up for a second time, Jazz was perched on the tree, looking way too normal and earth-Faerie to be something from Dewerder. "Hey," Toby said, yawning. She pulled a mini-tube of toothpaste from her bag and rubbed some on her teeth, swishing with water from a bottle they definitely needed to refill before setting out again. 

Jazz cawed in response. Toby laughed a little and stretched, grabbing some of the dried meat from where it still sat on the spit. Refrigeration was a changeling's friend, but she figured it would probably be okay.

"Oh, are we up now? Awesome," May said. She sprung up like a daisy, or someone who'd slept a lot better than Toby herself had. "Are we walking, or will you open the Blood Road again?"

Toby glared. "We're walking."

May smiled a little, wryly. "I had to give you a reason to look more awake. Let's get going."

The biggest problem with Dewerder, aside from the fact that they were only in it to find the Luidaeg, was that there was no real way to tell how the time was passing. They walked, and they walked, and there didn't seem to be much in the way of progress. Toby was pretty sure the amulet was getting warmer, but -

"It's not enough," she said around the fire, after they'd all gotten tired again. "We're going on the world's stupidest quest, and it's not enough."

"What would you suggest we do?" Tybalt said.

"We're doing all we can." Quentin sounded affronted - and that made sense; he hadn't really been steady since they discovered the Luidaeg was missing. The idea that they might not be busting their asses in an effective way would kill him.

"Sure," Toby said. "But we might be attacking this the wrong way. We have an amulet to find her, but walking...walking might not be the best way to do this."

"What are you suggesting?" May said. "Come on. Spit it out."

Toby took a deep breath and said, "I'm suggesting I shift my blood enough to _make_ Mom come to me."

Now that she said it out loud, it sounded kind of crazy. 

"And then, what? So much for your humanity?" May gave her a level, long look. "I know how much you care about staying a changeling."

"I won't shift my blood all the way," Toby said. "And believe me, if anyone's got a better idea, I'm all ears. But I haven't heard one."

"Amandine didn't come last time," Tybalt said.

He said it the way he always delivered bad news: calmly, uncruelly blunt. And the hell of it was, he was right. "Oak and ash, you think I don't know that? But she came before, when I was dying. If I shift my blood - if I make myself immortal, or almost - she'll come. This is a crisis, what we're going through right now. She has to come." The Undersea alone, Amandine's sister gone - how could she not come?

She knew she sounded off. She didn't need to see everyone's wary expressions to know that. But that didn't change the fact that she was pretty certain she was right.

"I'm going to do it," she said. "Anyone who wants out -"

"No," Quentin said. He pressed his lips flat and leveled Toby with a glare that made him seem older, more like his father. "We told you already, we're not leaving."

Because whatever else she was, she wasn't allowed to be a loner anymore. "Right," she said. "We'd better start, then."

Since she'd only changed her blood when half dead or on Faerie drugs - or both - before, it felt a little weird to sit down on a fallen tree trunk (artfully decaying, of course, with all the grace imparted to a world dreamed by those who didn't know aging) and dredge up some magic. Everyone was in a half-circle around her when she pulled out her knife.

"It's always blood," Quentin said.

"The Dochas Sidhe do tend towards that," Tybalt said mildly.

Quentin flushed. "I just meant -"

"Guys, come on," May said. To Toby, she added, "Well?"

Toby cut her hand. For neatness's sake, she did it over the pink-skinned, newly-healed cut she'd made to get them to Dewerder to begin with.

Her magic rose around her, copper and cut grass. She sent a brief prayer up - a call, almost, to her mother and her heritage. What she was about to do was stupid, reckless, and totally counter to who - and what - she wanted to be. But she had to do it, so she turned her focus inward, to the blood.

Veins and heart, warm skin and the dark blood under it. Toby lifted her cut hand and licked it, rolling the blood on her tongue, feeling its balance. Her humanity felt like sparks against a dark plain, and it hurt - it was agony - to extinguish them. In good health, in full awareness of herself and her need, she slowly pushed her blood away from humanity. She felt her body change, her senses grow sharper, until she was on the very edge, with the barest bit of humanity left in her. Just before she wiped it all out, she stopped and whispered, "Come on, Mom."

Which was when she fell into a trance.

She recognised the Summerlands, of course. She was in Amandine's tower, at the very top, looking out a window at an impossibly paranoramic view. "This is how you want to get in touch?" she said, turning.

Amandine was sitting at her desk, as unreachable as ever. "It's preferable to Dewerder. Much more civilized."

"Faerie created the wilds." Toby wasn't even sure why she was being so defensive - well, she knew why. Amandine had that effect on her, even now, when she looked so much closer to sanity than Toby remembered. "You don't think they're beautiful?"

"I prefer my tower." When Amandine looked at Toby, her expression was filled with regret. "October -"

Toby turned away. "Don't."

"I know I have hurt you. But now, shifting your blood...you're hurting yourself. To what end?"

Toby suspected Amandine already knew, with the kind of creeping mistrust she was used to experiencing around Amandine. "The Luidaeg is gone."

"I know."

She didn't say anything else. Toby suspected she wanted to wait until Toby asked her for more information, to draw it out. Amandine always did have a taste for the dramatic. But Toby wasn't willing to play her games. Not today, with her newly changed blood thrumming in her, anger contributing to her power as much as anything else. "Do you know where she went?"

"No."

Amandine looked at her. Toby looked back. Finally, she broke and said, "Then what _do_ you know?"

"I work in shadows," Amandine said. She stood up and moved away from the heavy desk, going to study a tapestry on the wall, with her back to Toby. "The gift of bloodworking is not an easy one, as I'm sure you've discovered."

"I'm aware," Toby said. "No thanks to you."

"No." Amandine sounded sad. "I suppose not."

Toby wasn't there to accommodate Amandine's sadness. "I need to know what you know of where the Luidaeg might have gone."

"I don't know a lot." Amandine reached out and trailed her fingers down the tapestry. Her hands were long and lithe, delicate. Not like Toby's hands at all. "My sister was never terribly forthcoming with me."

Toby would bet hard cash that the Luidaeg had her reasons, but she couldn't say that to her mother's face. So instead, she said, "Any little bit will help."

"You're waking." Amandine looked over at her. "Stay where you are. Do not move. I will join you presently."

Toby woke up.

"Welcome back," Tybalt said. "I don't suppose you learned anything useful."

Toby grimaced, sitting up. "Of course not. That'd be too easy."

Tybalt's smile was so faint that, had Toby not known him as well as she did, she wouldn't have seen it. "Of course."

"She's going to come to us. We have to stay put for now."

"We're going to follow Amandine's instructions?"

Toby heard her own resentment in May's question. She steeled herself for disagreement and said, "Yeah, we are. Amandine's a real piece of work, but she said she'd come." They hadn't talked about it, but - "She knows I changed my blood. It's her sister. She'll show."

"I will hunt," Jazz said, and turned into a bird abruptly, flying away.

"Sometimes I think she does that just to avoid awkward conversations," Quentin said.

"If you could, you would," May said. She sighed. "Damn it. I don't like it, but I know you're right."

"It's rough," Toby said. "But right now, we don't have even the whisper of a lead. Amandine gives us that."

May scowled. "I guess."

Toby smiled faintly. "Plus, think of how she'll react to you."

She wasn't surprised when that visibly cheered May. She and May were very different people now, and in some ways they had nothing in common. But in some, possibly more important ways, they had everything in common. Amandine was definitely in the latter category.

The problem with this plan was that it involved staying in one place for a long time, and Toby wasn't good at that. She kept wanting to move, to go forward to - somewhere.

But instead they had to stay still. Well, relatively still. They hunted and May and Jazz traveled around the camp in wider and wider loops, but Toby knew them both well enough to know that was just a method of killing time. She and Tybalt stuck together - and Quentin stuck by them. Toby wasn't sure if Quentin also noticed the way Tybalt was looking more and more harried.

This realm wasn't for him - not really. Toby still didn't completely understand the rules the Cait Sidhe operated under; it was complicated by the fact that she suspected they made them up as they went along. But either way, he was on edge, and Toby could tell that part of what was keeping him from fleeing was the simple fact that none of them could leave without Toby opening the Blood Road again.

Well - that, or finding the Luidaeg. Toby was still holding out hope for the latter.

On the third day, just as Toby was starting to go genuinely stir-crazy, Amandine appeared.

Literally: a hole to the Blood Road opened up, and Amandine stepped out, right in the middle of their camp.

"Good to know you can use that road, too," Toby said distantly.

Amandine laughed. It sounded like a wind chime - nothing fancy, just metal tubing hanging from a porch. It was the opposite of her glamorous appearance, and Toby uncharitably thought that it was obviously a lie. "Of course I can," she said. "There are benefits to being my daughter, you know."

Toby bit back a number of retorts, saying instead, "Do you know where the Luidaeg is?"

Amandine sighed. Her expression was sad - too sad, Toby thought. She was putting it on. It had been a long time since Toby trusted her mother, but now she trusted her even less. "I told her to leave it alone," Amandine said, sitting down on a fallen log.

"You'll tear your dress, my lady." Tybalt's voice was the soul of respect, but there was a mild threat there, too.

Toby looked more closely at him. Or maybe not so mild.

"Have you been attacked yet?" Amandine said.

Tybalt didn't bristle at being ignored. Visibly, anyway. "No," Toby said. "Why?"

"You will be, in Dewerder."

"We'll deal with it." Toby was itching to grab her knife, but she was pretty sure that would give the wrong impression. She forced herself to say, "Leave what alone?"

Amandine blinked and looked up at her. Her eyes were endless, easy to fall into. Toby knew how that would end up, though, so she looked away. "You told the Luidaeg to leave what alone?"

She injected a note of - hardness - into her voice, as much as she could. Amandine would disapprove, but then, it was Amandine's neglect that had put it there.

Toby forgot about her complaints, though, when Amandine said: "Titania."

It felt a little like the ground opened up under her. "Titania?" 

"These are the forgeries of jealousy," Amandine said. She smiled faintly. "Shakespeare jested. But Titania doesn't."

"Titania took the Luidaeg?"

"Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms." Amandine looked between Tybalt and Toby. "She enjoys complications."

"Milady, no offense meant, but you're not really making sense," Quentin said.

It was such a mixture of court and Toby-talk that Toby almost laughed. Almost, because Amandine's expression was sharpening. And whatever else she might be, Amandine was still dangerous.

"Titania dislikes the way Faerie has developed," Amandine says. "There's a story in the human lore, about a flood."

"Noah's ark," Toby said.

"No," Amandine said. "Not a story particular to that religion. Or any other. Humanity has expanded, crawling across the Earth and pushing Faerie out, and every generation, every mud-covered group of them, has a story of a flood."

Toby didn't bother pointing out that if Amandine had so much contempt for humans, she shouldn't have been so determined to play Faerie bride. Instead, she said, "Okay. So?"

"Titania wishes to flood Faerie. To remake them in her own image."

"That's impossible," Toby said. "Practically speaking. How - Oberon and Maeve?"

"Locked away," Amandine said. "Even their children only have stories of how that came to be."

"Great," Toby said. "So Titania wants to wipe out Faerie, she's going to try to force the Luidaeg to help, and Oberon and Maeve are withering away in a prison we can't even probably access. Am I missing anything?"

"Titania is in Dewerder."

Toby went still.

"It isn't hers," Amandine said. "Her realms are prettier and more cruel. But she needed the power in the land here, to gather strength for her next move. She's been planning it for - oh, for awhile. But I never thought she'd catch my sister."

"How did she?"

"Surprise," Amandine said. "Or so I assume. L - the Luidaeg was - is - the most powerful of us. One of the oldest, and certainly the one who kept her sanity the best." Amandine looked up at Toby, and for a second, she looked like a supplicant at a Faerie court. "I couldn't have protected her. Not against Titania."

"Who could?"

Amandine shrugged. It was a beautiful, fluid movement. 

Toby heard herself say it, instead of giving the words a second's thought. "I'm going to kill her."

Amandine stared, then laughed. "October, you can't. You're a changeling. What hope could you possibly have -"

"Look at me," Toby said. " _Look at me._ I changed my blood. I'll kill her."

"You could find Oberon and Maeve."

"What are the chances of me doing that before Titania plays God? And don't give me the lecture about human theism. That's what she's doing."

"You can't kill her, October. She would send you into a world of infinite pleasure and torture, and make you forget your own name."

"Since the rest of Faerie has sat around on its asses -"

"Toby," Quentin said quietly.

Toby blinked once, twice - hard blinks, where she saw black for a couple of seconds. "Fine," she said. "I can't kill Titania. But I'm getting the Luidaeg back."

"I can't stay." Amandine looked around, and for the first time, Toby noticed the gathering clouds. "But I can give you a map."

"You know this place?"

"I know how to find Titania." Amandine lifted a finger and produced a needle from - somewhere in her dress. "And I never said it would be a human map, October."

This was the magic Amandine had hidden from Toby in the Summerlands: her pricking her finger and the drops of blood falling, shimmering, to land on a flat surface that didn't exist, pooling in midair. Amandine's rosewater and lily magic rose around them, and Toby shivered as the blood continued flowing.

Finally, Amandine said, "That's enough." The wound on her finger closed, and Amandine waved a hand over the pool of blood. It dried, turning rust-red, and then...the only word for it was _squeezed_. It squeezed and folded itself until it was a delicate paperlike compass, resting in Amandine's hand.

"We have one of those," Toby said. "A guide."

"You have something that glows when you're getting warm. Child's play," Amandine said. "This will lead you to Titania, not my sister. From there, you can use your amulet."

Considering that they'd been wandering based on a vague tug from the amulet, it was better than nothing. "Keep it with you," Amandine said. "It is a map, if you unfold it, but a map of the energies of this place. It will refold at your will. Watch for the energies of this place. Dewerder will test you, but you can limit the extent of those tests, and their severity."

Thunder sounded. Amandine handed Toby the compass; she took it and nearly dropped it, surprised by its weight. Amandine's smile was faint. "My girl," she said, then took a step away. "Don't use that trick to find me again. It won't work."

Toby's tongue was heavy in her mouth. She couldn't respond, even as Amandine slashed her hand open, opened the Blood Road, and left - a process that took as many seconds as it did for Toby to draw her knife, most of the time.

"I'd forgotten she was like that," May said from behind Toby.

Toby wasn't proud of the way she jumped, almost dropping the compass - map - whatever it was. "Oak and ash."

"Sorry." May moved towards her, holding out her hand. "May I?"

Toby tried to pass it over, but her hand hit a barrier when she tried to move it over May's. Frowning, she transferred the compass to her other hand, and waved her empty hand over May's.

"Keyed to you," Tybalt said. "Imagine what Amandine could do, if -"

"You can say it," Toby said. "If she wasn't crazy."

"I'd planned to phrase it more delicately."

"It's true." Toby took a deep breath. She could feel her shoulders slumping, so she squared them, moving the compass to her right hand again. "I don't want to put this thing down just yet. Can we get camp ready to go?"

Twenty minutes of scrambling later, they were cutting through the prairie. Toby didn't like the looks of the stand of trees in the distance, but the compass was pointing that way - and for now, Toby'd chosen to trust Amandine. 

The worst that could happen was that they died, and Toby wasn't really worried about that right now. She had too much else to worry about. Plus, the amulet was tugging marginally more, and that was reassuring.

"You might not want to hear this," Quentin said as they walked through the prairie. The grass was starting to make Toby's ankles itch.

"What?"

Three years ago, that kind of response would have daunted Quentin. Now, he just said, "Do you think you could do that?"

"My father's human," Toby said. "I can't just wave blood around and have it be whatever I want, no."

"But -"

"Even if I shifted my blood, I still wouldn't be Firstborn."

"Wouldn't you?" Quentin said. "Your mother's blood. The only reason the rest of us aren't Firstborn is because we're - we married each other, way back. And still. But you have your mother and your father's blood, and you've made it more your mother's, so…"

This conversation was making Toby's head hurt. "No, Quentin. I don't think it works that way."

She barely heard him say, "But if it did, you might be able to beat Titania."

She stopped dead at that. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jazz stop and put her arm out, holding May back from them.

"No," Toby said again. "I'm not going to - become that. I can't. And if Amandine can't defeat Titania, what makes you think I could?" Not to mention that she'd prefer not to go crazy, and the odds didn't seem to be on her side, when it came to having Amandine's blood.

"All I'm saying is, you should think about," Quentin said. "We can't really afford to be picky."

He had that mulish stubbornness that Toby thought would make him a good King, if they all lived that long. "Fine," she said. "I'll consider it."

"Thanks," Quentin said, and took off at a loping pace, overtaking all of them.

Tybalt joined her not long after. "Are you going to lecture me too?"

"It may come that you have to change your blood again," Tybalt said. "And then you will do what you must. But right now, we just need to find Titania."

"Are you also picturing - a moat? Dragons? A craggy castle on a hill?"

"No," Tybalt said. "I am picturing a lovely clearing surrounded by willow trees, and the smell of sweet rotting fruit."

Toby cut him a glance. Tybalt's smile was wry - bitter, even. "I have known Titania's people."

"Ah," Toby said. She stayed quiet after that.

By the time they reached the edge of the forest, Toby's arm was getting tired. She was ready to keep going, but the compass turned just a little, guiding them to a path leading into the forest.

Toby stopped for a moment and stared. It was dark in there, very little sunlight making it through the trees. And flickering out of the corners of her eyes, she thought she could see - things.

Things.

"Let's stop here for the day," Toby said.

Tybalt looked up at the sky, then raised his eyebrows.

Toby scowled. "You know what I mean."

"It looks like there's a storm coming," May said. She pointed to the horizon, which was sporting clouds like the ones that had gathered around Amandine, only stretching for miles. "Should we weather it out here?"

"There's something in there," Toby said. "Remember what Amandine said? Dewerder will test us. I'd rather do that having had some sleep."

"I can curve the earth," Quentin said. He gave Toby a shame-faced look. "I mean, I think I can. Enough for a shelter, anyway."

They ended up huddling in a kind of lean-to, with the tent covering the ground that Quentin's little wave-like hill didn't. It was close quarters, but Toby wasn't going to complain. She got to put the too-heavy compass down and take a deep breath, feeling herself unwind with the small amount of distance from Amandine's magic.

"I must say," Tybalt said quietly as they all ate their dried meat and nuts, "you've certainly taken the concept of the hero's quest to a new level. For you, anyway. The songs and stories speak of this sort of thing as though it happens all the time."

Toby shook her head. "I don't even want to think about it."

"He's right," May said. "Maybe the sheer force of your righteousness will let you kill Titania."

The wind outside began picking up, and raindrops fell. Toby shrugged, the discomfort of outside getting to her. "Maybe we shouldn't talk about that here."

"She doesn't have control over Dewerder," Tybalt said. "She cannot. It would kill her."

"You don't have to control a place to have spies in it," Toby said.

"If she heard Amandine, we're screwed," May said.

Toby shook her head. "We'll make stronger wards. And we'll beat off whatever Dewerder throws at us. Titania's cruel and petty, but who knows? The Luidaeg might already be fighting her. All we have to do is hold off the...whatever's in that forest...and keep going. And not get killed."

"Inspirational, chief," May said.

"I'm realistic," Toby said. "You all knew that."

Tybalt reached out and touched her ear. It felt strange - wrong, even; it was pointed like Amandine's now, no trace of human bluntness left. "You are."

Toby slept fitfully that day. She had dreams of blood in the Summerlands, a darker side of the magic Amandine had taught her. In the dreams she was still a child, but an immortal one; she aged but didn't decay, and Amandine looked at her with pride. It was chilling, the few times she came awake enough to remember them; she woke up four or five times, and each time there was a heavy pressure in her eyes, like she wanted to cry. 

The last time she woke, she decided to just stay up. This was already more sleep than she usually got on a case. She sat up and made the mistake of looking over at the forest. The eyes within them were glowing even more than they were before.

"If you're feeding off of my bad dreams, you can fuck off," Toby said, quietly enough not to wake anyone else up. Human profanity felt good - a lifeline, of sorts, in all of this mess.

Everyone else started waking up soon after. They barely talked, just gathered their things and went into the forest.

They stayed on the path. That was really the only way to do it, because the branches curved threateningly, their leaves rustling as - things - leaped from tree to tree. The undercover had slithering snakes and tiny animals that somehow gave off the impression of having incredibly sharp teeth, even though they never saw the animals' faces. The trees creaked and groaned with a tepid-smelling breeze, and the path sometimes became so narrow that Toby was positive they'd fall off it.

And the farther they went, the stronger the compass's tug became. 

"Toby," May said, after they'd been walking for awhile. "Do you know any songs?"

"Any - what?"

"Songs," May said. "We're a merry company. Maybe we can sing our way out of this forest."

Sometimes Toby wondered where May got her ideas from. It certainly wasn't from Toby's memories. "That's ridiculous."

"It does work in stories," Tybalt said mildly. "Though in stories, more than one person can generally walk abreast on the path."

"We're not singing," Toby said. "I didn't draw the line at my mother, but I will definitely draw the line at singing."

"Are you sure?" Jazz said. "It might help."

"I'm sure," Toby said. Unless they got in trouble. Then she'd probably revisit that particular proclamation.

"This forest reminds me of my grandmother's knowe," Jazz said after awhile.

"Does your grandmother's knowe want to kill you?" Toby said.

She heard an odd rustling noise that might have been Jazz laughing. "It's Faerie," she said. "I won't pretend it's not somewhat...ominous, but we're crows. Carrion birds. We deal in death and darkness."

"That's all very Edgar Allen Poe," Toby said.

"Who?"

"Never mind. So you don't think this place will kill us."

"Oh, it will probably try," Jazz said. "But at least we'll be prepared."

"Fair point," Toby said.

"Hey," Quentin said. "Is that a light?"

Toby followed the line of his arm, reaching past her shoulder - he was so tall now. Sure enough, there was distant light at the end of the path.

"Everyone get an energy bar," she said. "That's the end of the forest."

"Small forest," Quentin said.

"Narrow but wide," Tybalt said. "The Forgotten Woods of Dewerder. If we weren't unfamiliar travelers, it might not have appeared to us at all."

Toby actually turned around at that, briefly. "One of these days I'm going to ask you how you know all this stuff."

Tybalt smiled faintly - the smile of someone who doubted he'd live to see that day. "You're welcome to."

Toby turned around. She couldn't exactly snap at him for fatalism she felt, too.

It was just as well that the light was getting closer rapidly, because Toby was getting tired enough that she wasn't sure they'd be able to fight whatever was out there - but she was also increasingly certain that it would be stupid to spend the night in the woods. The path widened as they got closer to the light, until it was wide enough for all five of them to walk side by side. As the beams of light became close enough to hurt Toby's eyes, she said, "Hands on weapons, everyone. Let's go."

They walked out into a meadow. Toby's first impression was of the tangle of beautiful flowers everywhere, climbing up narrow trees and tangling in a riot with the meadow grass. Her second impression was of the giant, feathered - something - with teeth the size of her forearm, standing at the end of the meadow.

"I was hoping we wouldn't have to slay a dragon," she said, mostly to herself.

"Love, this may have escaped your notice, but that isn't a dragon."

"It might as well be." Toby glared at Tybalt, then turned to the - whatever it was. "Hi," she said.

The bird - fine, she'd call it a bird - eyed them and then threw its head back, letting out a roar that shook the trees.

"Should we kill it?" Quentin said.

"I believe she's a lady," Tybalt said. "Why don't we try talking to her?"

Toby's hand tightened on her dagger. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Why not? Dewerder tests bravery. Is it really cowardly to attempt to find a peaceful solution to this?"

Toby gritted her teeth. Tybalt might be right - especially by Faerie standards, which tended towards twisting illogic - but that didn't mean she had to like it. "Okay. Does anyone speak Giant Bird?"

"I don't see why we should have to." Tybalt stepped forward, every inch the feline predator. Toby didn't like his chances if he tried to leap on this particular prey. "Hello. My name is Tybalt, King of Cats. And you are?"

The bird squawked thunderously.

"Nice to meet you," Tybalt said. "I was wondering if you'd let us pass. We're on a bit of a mission, you see, and need to find the quickest way to - our destination."

He sounded unctuous, which wasn't really good on him. Then again, maybe giant birds liked sleazy Kings of Cats.

The bird squawked again, more quietly this time. Tybalt nodded. "I'd be much obliged."

"Does he know what it's saying?" Quentin said quietly to May.

"Just wait," May said.

The bird turned its head and regarded them with one huge yellow eye. Toby fought the urge to shiver, or try to carve the thing like a turkey. Neither would be productive.

The bird stepped aside - but not nearly far enough away that it couldn't peck them to death if they got any closer.

"Should we go?" Toby said.

"Of course," Tybalt said. "We appreciate your cooperation," he told the bird, and they began walking forward.

Toby didn't relax until they were across the meadow and cresting a hill, far away from the bird. "Oak and ash."

"Dewerder will do that to you," May said. Her voice had those odd tones again, the ones that reminded Toby that she was just a couple years removed from being a night haunt; she sounded otherworldly, dangerous to even listen to. 

"Thanks," Toby said, scowling as she dropped down onto another fallen tree. Dewerder was full of them, and luckily, Toby hadn't seen any snakes. "I couldn't have figured that out on my own."

"How's the compass?" Quentin said. More than any of them, his eyes kept straying to it, as though he could solve the riddle of Amandine's magic by staring.

"Not terrible," Toby said. "Heavy. Pulling me…" She stood up again and looked over the hill. "That way," she said, pointing to rising foothills.

It looked, from here - maybe four or five miles out - idyllic and peaceful. Toby wasn't exactly an expert on Titania, but based on what Amandine had said, how the land looked wasn't any guarantee that Titania wouldn't be there. And the compass really was heavy.

"Right," she said. "I need coffee."

"We're not near a spring," Tybalt said. "And we probably shouldn't start a fire."

Toby gave him an annoyed look. "Just give me a packet, would you?"

Wordlessly, Jazz handed her a packet of Via. She tore it open with her teeth and poured it down her throat, grimacing.

"Shouldn't you...chew it first?" Quentin looked equal parts horrified and fascinated.

"It's water soluble, and it'll kick in faster this way."

"Charming," Tybalt said.

"Don't you start." But there was no heat in it. Tybalt was looking at her with the kind of slight smile that reminded her she had a _lot_ to live for.

"Let's keep going," she said after a long moment. She could already feel the coffee reanimating her.

If Dewerder was meant to test bravery, they were now being rewarded. There was a soft breeze, and the trees almost glowed in the orange-yellow light. It was, in a word, beautiful. Toby wished they were there under better circumstances - and maybe that they hadn't had to take the blood road to get there - so that she could stop and enjoy this world, weird and dangerous though it was. But they had a presumably pissed-off mother of Faerie to deal with, so she sucked it up and kept walking.

The hills started looming around them, the trees fiery fall colors in spite of the warm air. "Anyone else feel like we're walking into an ambush?" Toby said, pitching her voice low. Who knew if the trees there had ears.

It was May who answered her. "That's not Titania's style. She'll lure us in, then strike on her territory."

"Comforting," Toby said. 

"That's Titania."

They kept walking, until suddenly the compass became so heavy Toby's arm sagged. She turned - and saw a small door in the hill that threatened to encroach upon the small path they were following.

"Well," she said, staring at it. "It's been great, guys."

"Don't be such a fatalist," Tybalt said. But he pulled her close and kissed her. She had a single, shining moment of feeling like all her worries were gone before he pulled away again.

"Let's go," she said.

The door opened at the touch of Toby's fingers. Toby half expected a dark tunnel, but of course there wasn't one; the door opened directly into a massive ballroom. Chandeliers worked in wood and rubies hung from the ceiling; sunshine came in through a lattice of branches far above their heads. Tapestries depicting the Oberon, Maeve, and Titania hung on the walls, which were covered in warm swirls of wood and vines. The floor was moss, with flowers dotting it.

And on the far end, a woman sat in a throne of branches, watching them.

"Hi," Toby said. "I'm guessing you're Titania."

"And you're the insolent Dochas Sidhe knight." Titania's voice sounded as close as if she was saying it in Toby's ear. She sounded friendly, even interested in what Toby had to say. 

Toby wasn't fooled. "If we wanted to go with epithets, I'd have said you're the woman who took my friend."

"Your friend?" Titania laughed. It sounded like bells on a summer day. "The Sea Witch doesn't have friends."

"Yes, she does," Quentin said.

There was a time when Toby would've motioned for him to be quiet, but he was growing up, and the Luidaeg _was_ his friend. So Toby just watched as Quentin stepped forward and said, "We're her friends."

"Very well." Titania sounded bored. "You're her friends. How impressive. What do you have to offer me?"

"Offer you?" Toby said. She handed May the compass, motioning to May's pack. "Nothing that's yours to take."

"Don't think you can hide that object from me. I can feel its power." Titania tapped her fingers on her throne. That sound carried, too. "Amandine's power."

"I'm not sure what you want with your niece," Toby said, "but you're going to need to give her up. I killed Blind Michael; I'm not afraid to tangle with you."

Toby blinked, and suddenly they were all standing at the foot of Titania's throne, hurled across the room. "Brave words." Titania leaned down, regarding Toby with about as much contempt as Cagney and Lacey reserved for stray bugs in the house. "But do you really know what you're tangling with?"

"No, because you locked my grandmother away." Toby did her best to sneer at Titania. All things considered, she wasn't sure she succeeded. "If you hadn't done that, maybe I'd know."

"Faerie has strayed." Titania leaned back in her throne. For the first time, Toby noticed what she wore: a dress of interlocked flowers. She was Old Fae, Toby thought, tied to the land in a way Faerie in the human world hadn't been for a couple thousand years. For a second, Toby's breath felt trapped in the back of her throat.

"So's humanity, but you don't see us killing them," she managed to say.

"Though that might be preferable." Titania sighed, kicking one bare foot over her ankle. "Faerie has strayed, and I intend to correct that. Your friend will be safe. I don't intend to kill her."

"Just the rest of us," Jazz said.

Titania smiled at them. "Tell me, King of Cats," she said, "does your lover wake in the night, with my nephew's voice in her mind? Does she tremble as she feels herself bowing to his will?"

Tybalt was silent. For the first time since they entered the hill, Toby's adrenaline gave way to sheer fear. 

"I thought so." Toby felt cold fingers on her chin, forcing her head up. Titania hadn't moved, her hands still curled around the arms of her throne. "You'll never escape it," she said, almost conversationally. "Part of him will live in you until you die, pathetic changeling that you are. He scarred you so deeply, and yet you think you can fight me?"

"I think we're still alive, and having this conversation," Toby said through gritted teeth. "Which means you're scared." In one movement, she drew her knife, slashing at the invisible fingers and lunging towards Titania.

She heard the laughing sound of bells. Her knife cut through the image on the throne.

And then everything went dark.

_____

She didn't wake up tied up.

Not that that was a blessing. She didn't wake up tied up, but only because she woke up paralyzed. Standing up straight, with all her weight still there, but paralyzed neck to toes.

"I guess she's not too worried about my magic overcoming hers," she said, trying for jocular. Whistling in the dark, or something like that.

"Apparently not," May said from somewhere vaguely to Toby's right. It was dark wherever they were, so dark that even Toby's vision couldn't make out the vaguest shape.

"Is anyone else here?"

"If they are, they haven't woken up yet."

It occurred to Toby that Titania might be interested in Toby's Fetch - or, rather, how her Fetch was still alive. That was less than encouraging. Then again, so was everything about this situation.

"Why are we even here if the Luidaeg's not?" May said.

She sounded curious more than aggrieved. Toby wondered, once again, just how much May knew about Titania. How old she was.

No. That way lay nothing but questions she'd never get answered. "I wanted to see Titania's face," Toby said. "And I wanted to get the lay of the land."

"Well, we have it."

"Indeed." Toby concentrated on the bonds. It was a strong spell, the kind that she wouldn't have even been able to sense the architecture of before Amandine changed the balance of her blood. Now, she could - push the edges just a little. Feel around it.

It was still strong, impossibly so. Toby knew she couldn't break it alone. She was still a changeling, if an incredibly Fae one, and being her mother's daughter only counted for so much. If only…

"May," Toby said. 

"Toby."

May sounded cautious, like she already knew Toby had a probably-dangerous plan. Toby smiled a little. "How long do you think we have before someone comes in to feed us?"

"Awhile," May said. "Titania could keep us alive without food."

Oberon's balls. "Okay, well." Toby bit down on her lip, testing. "I guess I'll have to do this the hard way."

"I'd tell you not to do anything stupid, but we're way past that."

"Aren't we just," Toby said, and bit her lip hard.

Blood rushed into her mouth, and with it, power. This blood, her changed blood, was stronger than she was used to, and for a moment, she shied away from it. But it was still _her_ , so she got a handle on it, rolling the blood around in her mouth. Her mother wasn't strong enough to beat Titania - Oberon and Maeve might not have been, even. But Toby was stubborn, and she wasn't trying to kill Titania right now. She was just trying to get past this binding spell.

She breathed out slowly, through her nose, and _hurled_ her power at the bonds.

They didn't break. But they cracked. 

She did it over and over, until she lost track of time and started getting dizzy. Finally, just as she was about to give up, she heard a cracking noise. Suddenly, she could move her arms.

"Well done," May said, which Toby took to mean she was free too. The witchlight that glowed above them a moment later confirmed that.

She spat the blood on the ground, then sucked at her lip. "I feel awful."

"You just broke an Old One's spell," May said, voice as mild as summer in San Francisco. "I'm surprised you're not dead."

Toby looked down at her hands. They were shaking, and the blood seemed unnaturally close to the surface. "Just lucky, I guess. Let's go."

She'd hoped that she'd be able to find Tybalt - how, she wasn't sure. Maybe magically, or something. But luck wasn't on her side that day. They got out of the cell - the door wasn't even locked - and went into a long, winding hallway. Peering down it made Toby's head hurt.

"What fresh hell has Titania locked us in?" At least the hallway was lit.

"Want to find out?" May started walking down it.

But they didn't have time for that - and even if they did, Toby was pretty damn certain it wasn't a good idea. So she said, "Wait. No." She took off Tybalt's jacket; it was nice of Titania to leave it on her. Tybalt had worn it a few times in the last couple weeks, and his scent was still on it. She worried the cut on her lip and breathed in.

"This way," she said, and walked down the hallway, opposite the direction May had started off in.

"I didn't know you could do that."

"Neither did I."

"We'll have to talk about that."

"Later," Toby said, and drew an anti-locking spell on the door containing Tybalt.

It had Tybalt, Quentin, and Jazz, in fact. "Oak and ash," Toby said. They weren't even restrained.

Tybalt shook himself, then looked Toby up and down. "Covered in blood, I see. Have you ever attempted a rescue another way?"

Toby shrugged. "Do 'em if you got 'em," she said, and held out a hand. "Let's go. We have nothing else to learn here."

"If I might be so bold," Tybalt said as they walked down the hallway, "what exactly did we learn?"

"Where Titania lives," Toby said. "How she thinks. And her plan."

"I'm not entirely certain we couldn't have learned that somewhere else."

"Good for you," Toby said. "Now, are we going to haul ass out of here, or should we just wait for her to find us?"

Tybalt gave her the kind of look that meant they'd be having a conversation later, possibly punctuated by shouting. "Let's leave."

"Oberon's teeth," Quentin mumbles, shouldering past them. "We're going to die, and you two are still - "

"Still?" Toby said.

"Nothing," he said. "Let's _go_."

Toby wasn't going to argue with that. They left together, going down a winding hallway and following the compass in reverse - it got lighter as they exited the hill.

Toby couldn't help but feel that she wasn't the only one who'd been hoping to learn something from that encounter. Titania had their measure now, too.

"Great," she said when they'd been walking for about an hour, getting deeper into the foothills. "We're still stuck in Dewerder, and I...feel like shit."

"What's that?" Quentin said.

Toby followed the line of his arm. He was pointing at a house, high on a hill. It was unmistakably a house - with fanciful lines, certainly, and more chimneys than a house really needed. But still, a house. Like one you'd find near their home.

"A house," she said. "Let's go."

"Whoever lives there is probably dangerous," Tybalt said.

Toby knew she looked a little unbalanced when she smiled, but she was past caring. "Not as dangerous as me not getting some rest would be."

"As you say, little fish," Tybalt said. He took her arm, supporting her as they walked.

Toby accepted it. Hey; she was capable of learning and growing as a person.

They slowed down as they approached the house. Toby was doing it out of respect as much as anything else. She didn't want it to look like they thought they could kill, or maim, or just plain beat whoever was living in that house. For starters, she wasn't sure that they actually could.

She wasn't surprised when the door opened before they even walked up the steps. A little old lady stood in the doorway, looking every inch the human stereotype. She was wearing a gingham dress and a white apron, and leaned on a gnarled cane.

"Be polite," Toby said in a low voice. She pitched her voice a little louder. "Well met."

"Hail," the woman said. "Do you still bother with such greetings?"

"That depends," Toby said. "How old are you?"

They were close enough for her to inhale and smell the woman's magic - but it didn't exactly reveal anything useful. Her magic smelled like rosemary and dish soap. She smelled Fae, but not particularly dangerous.

The problem with that analysis was, this was Dewerder, and if this woman wasn't dangerous, Toby would eat her boots.

"You escaped Titania," the woman said. "Why don't you come inside?"

Toby narrowed her eyes. The woman looked at her with a studiously bland expression.

"...okay," Toby said. "Your hospitality is appreciated."

The woman smiled, the wrinkles on her face resolving into smile lines. She turned and went inside. Toby waved at May and Quentin, and held Tybalt's hand as they walked inside.

She expected the inside of the house to bend space, like any Faerie's home would; so it was a surprise when they went down a hallway - "Take off your shoes, please," the old woman said, and they obeyed - and into a living room. At no point did space seem to bend in the way that a Faerie home should have, even in one of the Deeper Realms.

The living room was spacious, though. Toby settled on the couch with Quentin and Tybalt, and May and Jazz sat on a loveseat. That left one of the three large, Old French-esque chairs for the old woman to perch in.

"Now," she said. "Why don't you tell me why Titania had you imprisoned?"

"How do you know it was her?" Toby said.

The woman raised a single thin eyebrow. "You stink of her, dear. All of you do."

"So. You guys aren't friends?"

The woman laughed. "Hardly."

"But she lets you live here?"

"No one lets me do anything. I live here, as I have since Oberon spilled his seed and created the first of the Firstborn. And so I will live here, until the mountains crumble and Dewerder folds in upon itself."

"Who are you?" Quentin said.

He looked horrified with himself the second the words left his mouth, but he stuck his chin out with a determined look, like he wasn't going to let his bad judgment rule him. Toby had to bite back a smile.

"Isn't it obvious?" the woman said. "I'm Dewerder."

"I was under the impression that this realm was Dewerder," Tybalt said.

"She's its soul." Jazz sounded like she was in awe. "My lady -"

"Oh, please, none of that," the woman - Dewerder - said as Jazz sank to the floor and bowed her head. "I'm an old woman, that's all. And root and branch, vine and leaf, earth and sky. But aren't we all? Please, get up."

Jazz got up and half-stumbled back to the loveseat. Dewerder took in their stunned expressions and smiled, the face of serenity. "I apologize for startling you. My true nature is not often revealed."

"I assumed the soul of Dewerder would be a man," Tybalt said.

Toby thumped his leg as Dewerder laughed. "You didn't," she said, "but your wit is appreciated. You could feel me in the wind and the timeless days."

Tybalt didn't reply.

Which meant that it fell to Toby to ask the incredibly disrespectful, but incredibly obvious, question. "So. Why do you let Titania stay here if she's trying to destroy Faerie?"

"Purge," Dewerder said. "Not that I approve, oh no - but accuracy in speech is important during times like these. Titania wants to purge Faerie and begin anew. And you, October Daye, are central in that plan."

"Why?"

"Blood, of course," Dewerder said. "She needs to bleed you try to use her niece's power."

"Root and branch, I'm tired of blood," Toby said. "Can't it be something else? What if she just needed to steal my magic through - my hair, or something?"

"With the Dochas Sidhe -"

"I know," Toby said. "Believe me, I know. So. She wants my blood."

"To purge Faerie."

"That doesn't answer the question of why you let her stay here."

Dewerder's expression changed. It was marginal, barely noticeable - Toby would've missed it were she not staring at her. But what crept into her expression was sadness, as deep as a canyon. "I am the breath of Faerie," Dewerder said. "I cannot reject a child of Faerie, no matter how cruel. I can contain her, and I have, to her home in the hills. Were she to walk my meadows, she would find herself again imprisoned. But I cannot kill her, or force her to leave. Only another member of Faerie can do that."

"You're a member of Faerie, are you not?" Tybalt said.

Dewerder spread her palms. "I am a breath on the wind, not a child of Faerie."

That was about as clear as mud, but Toby wasn't going to _say_ that.

"So," May said. "You wouldn't happen to have some tips for us finding the Luidaeg, would you?"

"The Sea Witch." Dewerder cocked her head, expression growing distant. "She is of the land, closer to me than any of her sisters."

Toby just barely bit back a sarcastic remark. "But finding her," she said. "How would we go about doing that?"

Dewerder's focus eased in, landing on Toby. "But you know," she said. "You have a charm."

"It's been marginally useful. It got us here."

"On the blood road." Dewerder's thin body shuddered. "I felt it tear into me."

"Our apologies," Tybalt said. "Unfortunately, needs must."

"I understand." Dewerder sighed. "The Sea Witch is imprisoned, fighting to be free. She is in the darkest hollow of a mountain to the west. I can feel her anger, and her hopelessness."

"Which mountain?" Toby said. "Can you make us a map?"

Mischief sparked in Dewerder's expression. "I can do better than that. I can take you there. The space here is mine to fold, just as your blood is yours to spill."

Toby thought maybe she shouldn't say what was on her tongue, but the moment felt heavy. Mythical. And sometimes, even Faerie had debts. "Thank you," she said. Tybalt breathed in sharply, but no one else sounded surprised. "We're in your debt."

"Most of Faerie is," Dewerder said. She dusted her hands on her apron and stood. "I can take you there, and keep Titania away. But I cannot stop Titania from finding another way to accomplish her plan, even without your blood."

"Which I'll do my best to keep away from her," Toby said. "Right." She stood, then hesitated. "You wouldn't happen to have coffee, would you?"

"Toby," Quentin said in a low, scandalized voice.

But Dewerder just laughed. "I do," she said. "Come to the kitchen, all of you. You'll need provisions for where you're going."

That was ominous, but Toby followed. She felt validated when, a few minutes later, she was nursing a mug of coffee almost as big as her face.

"Oberon's balls, this is good."

"Cursing in the soul of a Faerie Realm's home?" Tybalt said mildly.

"I haven't had hot coffee in ages," Toby said. "There are worse things I could say."

"Indeed."

But Tybalt looked amused, even warm; and these days Toby was better at reading his expressions, an alarming number of which were pretty affectionate. Toby smiled at him and went back to burning her tongue on the coffee.

They had maybe a half hour of eating tiny sandwiches and drinking their beverages of choice before Toby decided it was time to leave. "Okay," she said. "I guess we'd better go."

Quentin put down his teacup without the slightest hint of reluctance. Everyone else followed suit. "Follow me," Dewerder said, and led them down a cozy hallway paneled in wood.

She stopped in a cozy bedroom. "In here," she said, and opened the closet door.

It revealed a tunnel that looked more like a mine shaft than anything else. Toby could feel herself getting a little queasy. "That's where the Luidaeg is?"

"Cradled in Heather Mountain," Dewerder said.

Toby wasn't sure 'cradled' was the word she'd use, but that was kind of beside the point. She sighed. "Okay. Who wants to go into the tunnel first?"

"I'm not unaccustomed to such places," Tybalt said. He squeezed her shoulder, then moved past her.

Quentin cast her a worried look, but followed Tybalt. May whistled a bit as she and Jazz went in. Then it was just Toby and Dewerder, and Toby - 

Felt a little weird about it all. "We're in your debt," she said again. 

"I will call on you when I need you," Dewerder said. She waved a hand, and two canteens appeared in her hands. "Take these. You'll need them."

"Thank you," Toby said, and took them.

The closing of the closet door behind Toby felt - final.

"Well," she said. There were spots of light in her vision that were barely helped by the dim lanterns. But the amulet was heavy in her pocket, and when she pulled it out, it was glowing.

"This way," she said. Everyone moved to let her to the front of them. The tunnel was narrow enough that walking two abreast would have been uncomfortable, so Toby was alone at the front. 

She sent up a prayer to - no one, really. Maybe Dewerder, though meeting the embodiment of an Inner Realm wasn't enough to make Toby religious. But still, she was hoping really hard and really loudly that the Luidaeg was okay. That Titania was keeping her alive, and not blinded or somehow wounded beyond rescue. That they'd get out, and that they could - somehow - stop Titania from wiping out nearly all of Faerie.

And that Toby would get to keep all her blood in her veins, or at least most of it. She might as well reach for the stars.

_The Luidaeg_

Titania had always been a tricky bitch, and age had only made her trickier. The Luidaeg wasn't guarded by anything as prosaic as members of Faerie. When she finally managed to open her eyes, breaking the tiniest bit of the binding on her, it was to see the streaked orange sky and sharp stars of Dewerder.

Funny that the most cowardly of the first Fae would be hiding out in the realm of Faerie meant for the brave and pure of heart. Then again, the Inner Realms were corrupted an age ago. Even the Luidaeg had been young then.

Well, younger.

Toby'd be looking for her by now. The Luidaeg wished she wouldn't, but she was Amandine's kid, and the crazy hadn't quite skipped a generation. The Luidaeg could practically feel the magic pulling Toby to her.

Now that she could open her eyes, she looked around - and cursed internally. She was bound to a pole in the desert, with rolling sand dunes as far as the eye could see. Titania knew she was the Sea Witch, knew that Maeve had imbued her with the rhythm of the tide in her veins. Not the tide of the human realm, but the tide of wherever she was - the soul of the sea didn't change, only the mechanics of it. And now she was surrounded by dust and dirt, without a drop of water on the surface for miles.

But she hadn't always been the Sea Witch, and Titania was too arrogant by half. The Luidaeg forced her head back, at an angle against the pole she was tied to, and took in a deep breath.

The desert had a soul, too, and the Luidaeg wasn't keen on waiting for a rescue.

 

_Toby_

Toby wasn't fond of small spaces. She liked the dark - she was Faerie, after all - but she could really leave small spaces. They weren't as bad as pools, or water in general, but she wasn't going to start spending a lot of time in the Court of Cats, or anywhere she didn't have the freedom to see the sky in.

So, okay. She was a little twitchy. 

"Keep walking," Tybalt said quietly, placing a hand on the small of her back. Not a year ago, she would've read that comfort as condescension and bristled at it. Oak and ash, a year ago it probably would have been condescension. Now, she nodded and marginally sped up.

"I don't suppose anyone knows where we're going," Jazz said.

"Through a mountain," May said. "Or, into one, rather."

"You have memories of Dewerder," Quentin said.

It wasn't a question, but May wasn't reticent in her answer. "Many. People die here - or they used to, anyway."

"Let's hope we're not some of them," Toby said. "Personally, I -"

They rounded a corner. Harsh light shone through an opening in the tunnel, an impossible opening. And suddenly, the amulet was tugging so hard it almost cut Toby.

"What in the world?"

May's voice sounded distant, and older than a voice identical to Toby's had any right to sound. "Titania's created a hole in Dewerder. Grab onto each other. We'll walk into the light together."

Back at Devon's, they'd watched human horror movies. They were nothing compared to what changelings dealt with every day, but Toby couldn't help but make a crack to herself about it. Walking into the light - this couldn't be a good plan.

"Toby," May said. It made Toby realize she hadn't responded. Damn it. What she wouldn't give for more coffee. She said, "I'm coming," and grabbed forward and behind her - Tybalt and Quentin's hands, respectively.

They walked into the light. Toby wasn't sure what she was expecting, but a desert definitely wasn't it. There they were, though, standing on a dune as a harsh, dry wind blew grains of sand around their ankles. There was nothing, not for miles.

Toby turned around. The entrance to the mountain was still there, a curved, doorway-like hole in nothing. Titania was scary in more than one way. 

"Well," she said. "We've got water. Who wants to lead the way?"

"The amulet?" May said.

It was tugging still, painfully. Toby blinked down at it; she'd almost forgotten it was there. "Yes," she said. "Yeah, definitely. Come on. Let's go."

They walked down the dune in single file. Toby led the way, then, with Tybalt beside her. They didn't talk; the heat that at first had been just punctuation to the day was bearing down more and more with every passing second. It was making Toby cranky, so she kept her mouth shut. She also very carefully didn't think about how they were going to make camp if this took more than a day.

Suddenly, as abruptly as it had started tugging, the amulet went totally dead. "Hang on," Toby said, halting them. They were standing on hard ground, about an inch of sand slowly swirling around them. Above them, a massive cactus provided a tiny bit of shade.

The Luidaeg was nowhere to be seen.

"Okay," Toby said. She did her best to sound calm. "Either the amulet's stopped working, or Titania's hidden the Luidaeg somewhere in here."

"Which is the better option?" May said.

"Neither," Toby said. "The better option is none of this ever happening."

"Let's look for the Luidaeg," Quentin said. "I'll try to scent her magic."

"Toby?" Tybalt said.

She knew what he was asking; he didn't need to elaborate. "Try to keep the sand off me," she said, and sliced her hand open on the sharp edges of the amulet.

She was instantly slammed with magic, strong enough that she struggled to stay on her feet. Titania's magic tasted of the sweet smell of rot, with nothing mixed in. The Luidaeg was sea and salt, and she was all over.

Which meant that she was here - it had to. Toby just had to figure out what Titania had done, how in the world she'd hidden the Luidaeg so thoroughly. She couldn't punch through Titania's magic; it was strong, too strong for that. But she could - wiggle. Find holes. And maybe in one of them, she'd find the Luidaeg.

Assuming, anyway, that she didn't first bleed to death.

"Come on, you old bitch," Toby muttered, licking the blood off her hand. "Show yourself."

She threw herself into the magic, riding the blood and hoping she'd come out on the other side.

_The Luidaeg_

She smelled Toby before she saw her. 

Toby always smelled of Amandine. Not crazy like Amandine did, but like blood - old blood and new, rushing through veins and drying on a hope chest. Toby was blood, whether she liked it or not, and as soon as the Luidaeg smelled her, she knew she'd arrived. Somehow.

But she looked around, and - there was nothing. Not that she could see, anyway. Toby wouldn't have come alone, not these days, but the Luidaeg was still frozen and alone in the desert. And she wasn't exactly having the best luck summoning water from the deep.

Fuck you, Titania, she thought, and slowly moved her fingers into a ball.

She was getting there.

Toby's smell was getting stronger now, and the Luidaeg knew she needed to open her mouth and talk. Maybe Toby was just invisible - or rather, she was invisible to Toby. Maybe, just maybe, this was all just a very fucked-up dream, and the Luidaeg wasn't in a desert at all. She wouldn't put it past Titania.

But Titania couldn't fake Toby's scent. So that part, at least, had to be true.

She pressed her teeth together, then tried to open them. It felt like trying to bite a diamond, but she struggled through. There had been an ocean in this desert once, and the memory of the water was there. The memory, and far beneath the surface...a river, rushing through the earth. Even Titania couldn't bend the laws of nature that much. The Luidaeg reached for that power and _pulled_.

Her mouth came free. She licked her lips, swallowed dryly, and said, "Toby?"

 

_Toby_

Toby wasn't really expecting the cactus to speak.

"Oberon's balls," she said. "Luidaeg?"

"I'm trapped," the cactus said. It wasn't moving a mouth, or anything, but it was very undeniably speaking. "That bitch Titania trapped me in a fucking desert."

"There's water here," May said. Good: the voice wasn't just in Toby's head. "Can you reach it?"

"Barely," the cactus - Luidaeg - said. "Toby, tell me what you see."

Toby did her best to sound calm when she said, "You're a cactus. Or trapped in one."

There was a long silence, and then the Luidaeg said, "God fucking damn it."

"I have an idea," Toby said.

"Is it a good one?" the Luidaeg-cactus said.

"No," Toby said. "But it's an idea. Get hold of the water."

She sliced her hand with the amulet again, then slammed her hand with the amulet against the cactus.

Its spines pierced her skin, but that was nothing compared to the power that suddenly surged through her. She fell to her knees, falling forward - into nothing, because the cactus wasn't there anymore. It felt like she was caught in a sandstorm, roaring in her ears and blurred colors as her only vision, until suddenly there were hands on her arms and the Luidaeg was saying, "That was fucking stupid."

Toby opened eyes she hadn't realized she'd closed. Her hand hurt like hell, and the Luidaeg was kneeling in front of her, glaring at Toby.

"I fucking told you not to follow me," she said.

Toby passed out.

When she woke up, it was dark. Well, that, or she was blind. She was definitely in her body, at least, and thank Oberon for small mercies: she could wiggle her fingers.

"Hello?" she said.

A ball of witchlight appeared above her, and with it, Tybalt's worried face. "You lost consciousness," he said. "We went back into the mountain. It's been six, perhaps seven hours."

"Not my worst," Toby said, and struggled to sit up. "Ow. Maeve's tits, I hurt."

"You undid Titania's spell." Tybalt's voice was as dry as, well, a desert. "I'm not surprised."

"I had help," Toby said. She pressed her hands to her eyes. The witchlight hurt. "The Luidaeg's powerful."

"Neither of you are powerful enough for what you did." Tybalt moved over to her, gently hoisting her upright. "Here. Water."

Toby obediently sipped. "What's our game plan?"

"The Luidaeg would like to kill Titania," Tybalt said. "May and I pointed out that such a course of action would require more coordination than we were capable of, with you out of commission. She's angry, but asleep. May and Quentin are keeping watch."

Toby's brain slowly sorted out the important bits. "So basically, we don't have one."

"Not at the moment." Tybalt leaned in, so slowly that Toby had ample time to duck away, and kissed her. It was slow and sweet, and made Toby wish they weren't in the middle of some insane quest, and that she had time to - well. Enjoy herself. "I am very glad to see you're okay."

"Coffee," Toby said, then blinked. "I mean, I'm glad you're glad. I'm glad - I just - oak and ash." She leaned forward and kissed him, harder that time, then said, "Coffee?"

Tybalt laughed a little. "We have some," he said, and stood up, walking over to where their supplies were piled against the rocky mountain wall.

Twenty minutes later, Toby was feeling a lot more like herself, and a lot less like someone who was going to burrow into the mountain and refuse to leave. The Luidaeg's arms were scratched to hell and she had a split lip, but otherwise, she was her usual powerful presence.

So, really, things were mostly okay. The only problem was, Toby had no idea what they were going to do.

"We can't attack Titania," she said, nursing her third cup of coffee.

"She means that we could, but we'd probably die," Quentin told the group.

Toby'd thought that was obvious. "Titania would rip us apart. The only reason we got away last time was because she wasn't interested in killing us. I doubt she'll feel that way again."

"I want to rip the bitch to pieces," the Luidaeg said. "Toby, she's still just Faerie. If you cut her head off, it'll stay off."

Toby privately had her doubts - that they'd be able to access Titania's head, at least. Who knew if she had just been using projections when Toby'd seen her? So she said, "Hopefully. But that doesn't change the fact that she's powerful and probably pretty pissed that we rescued you."

"So she'll be off her game."

Toby was going to retort with - something, she wasn't sure what yet - when May said, "You want to go after her alone."

Toby stopped, mouth open, as everyone stared at her. Finally she managed to say, "Do not."

"You fucking idiot," the Luidaeg said.

Toby sighed. "There's no point in all of us going," she said. "She'll just pick us off one by one. If I go - "

"You'll get killed," the Luidaeg said. "Toby, she got the jump on me, and I'm older, smarter, and better than you. What makes you think you have a chance?"

"To win? I don't." Toby shrugged. "But I can hurt her, maybe. Enough to make her think twice about her whole Noah's Ark plan."

"You must know we won't let you do that," Tybalt said.

"So, what?" Toby said. "We go back to San Francisco?"

"And find an answer," Quentin said. "A real one, not a suicidal one."

It was a nice, normal, sensible plan, and one that Toby knew she should follow. She thought about it, then sighed. "Fine," she said. "And, what, you want me to open the Blood Road inside a mountain?"

"Don't be ridiculous," the Luidaeg said. "I've been holding it open for twenty minutes. Let's get a fucking move on."

The trip back home felt shorter than the one to Dewerder, even though they had to camp a couple of times. Toby didn't realize how tense-and-bordering-on-crazed she was until they stepped out into her living room, and the overwhelming normalcy of it almost made her collapse.

"Welcome home, little fish," Tybalt said quietly, bracing a subtle hand on her back. "Would you like me to make you some coffee?"

"Yes," Toby said. She figured the desperate _please_ was implied.

She still had her dignity, though, so instead of collapsing on the couch, she followed Tybalt into the kitchen.

Which, really, meant she could've made the coffee. But Tybalt went through the motions, saying, "In your kitchen, covered in blood - it's a little frightening that this triggers nostalgia in me."

Toby smiled. She hoped it didn't look as tired as she felt. "Believe me, if there was another way, I'd take it."

"Oh, that I believe."

But Tybalt didn't sound like he quite believed it. Well, Toby did tend to find trouble, even when she didn't want to. Maybe that was why.

She sighed and leaned against the counter, closing her eyes. The scent of coffee arrived quickly enough, and with it, Toby's stomach growled. "Food," she said. "I need food."

She made a sandwich while Tybalt poured her a mug of coffee. One of the giant, size-of-her-head mugs, which was how she preferred it - short of drinking it directly from the pot.

Sitting down at the table felt like the coming of Oberon. She leaned into her coffee and inhaled deeply. 

"This is kind of creepy," Quentin commented from his spot across from her. He was munching on takeout that was - actually, Toby wasn't sure how old it was. But members of the Fae had iron stomachs, generally.

"It's heaven, is what it is," she said, taking a huge bite of her sandwich. 

Quietly, so quietly Toby had to strain to hear him, Quentin said, "What are we going to do?"

Toby took her time chewing, then taking a massive gulp of coffee. It didn't escape her that May and Jazz had also crowded into the kitchen when she said, "I guess we have to kill Titania."

"That's a crazy idea!" the Luidaeg yelled from the living room.

"I guess you wouldn't settle for just locking her away," May said.

"And leaving someone else to deal with the aftermath?" Toby shook her head. "That's not my style and you know it."

"No, your style is to bring hell down on your head," May said. "Tybalt?"

Tybalt made shrugging a fluid, even regal mannerism. "I won't say I didn't predict it."

"My mom and dad are gonna be so mad," Quentin said. But he didn't look like he'd take Toby telling him to back out well at all.

"I don't want to be a killjoy," Jasmine said, in a tone that made it obvious she actually did want to be one, "but have we thought about how we're going to kill a nearly all-powerful Old One?"

Toby had an idea. She wasn't looking forward to everyone hearing it, though. "What are the rules governing Faerie and cold iron, May?"

May frowned. "It would kill Titania," she said. "But that's assuming the person killing her has the strength to break through the defenses I'm sure she has, and no one who can handle cold iron has that kind of strength."

"But the ability to handle cold iron," Toby said. "It's in the blood."

"No," May said. 

"No!" Quentin said.

"Toby," Tybalt said.

"You're an idiot!" the Luidaeg yelled.

Jazz was silent.

"To clarify, I'm not suggesting I shift my blood. I'm suggesting I - change it."

"You can't just invent immunity to cold iron," Quentin said. He looked at the others, suddenly worried. "Can she?"

"It would certainly be an interesting experiment, and we all know how October loves those," Tybalt said.

"I'm not saying I think I can," Toby said. She was feeling distinctly impugned in the honor. "I'm saying I'm going to try."

"If you're sure that's the avenue you want to take, little fish," Tybalt said.

"It's the only one I can think of." Toby shrugged. "Titania's gunning for us. It's only a matter of time before she finds us - me and the Luidaeg in particular. If possible, I'd like to get a jump on her."

"And what are we, exactly?" May said. "Cannon fodder?"

"You're my twin," Toby said.

May groaned. "That ruse won't last long. She'll be able to tell. The Old Ones -"

"All-powerful, I know," Toby said. "But it only has to last long enough for me to stab her."

"Assuming you can handle cold iron," Tybalt said. "Have you considered dropping a cage of cold iron over her head?"

"I'd thought about it, but iron's heavy." Toby sighed. "Okay: I'm taking a nap, and then I'm going to play the fun blood-shifting game. Everyone else, do whatever you think you need to do to be ready for this."

She wasn't surprised when Tybalt followed her upstairs. She was surprised when he didn't speak, to dissuade her or gently mock her, or even to support her. Instead, he closed her bedroom door and leaned against it, pulling her in and kissing her.

It felt so good, a reminder that she was, for the time being, alive. But she really did need to sleep, so after a moment, she pulled away.

"Stay?" she said.

Once upon a time, she would've seen it as a sign that she was becoming too dependent on someone who might not stay. Now, it was just comfort when he got under the covers with her, pulling her close and resting an arm over her waist.

She slept soundly, and when she woke up, she felt ready to do - whatever it was she was going to do. She was still working that part out.

"Ready?" Tybalt said, stretching in a motion that was distinctly catlike.

"As Maeve made me." The vaguely human phrase seemed lost on him, so Toby turned away and combed her fingers through her hair. She didn't particularly feel the urge to look attractive as she changed her blood - again - but she felt like if her mother showed up, she should at least look vaguely presentable.

"Best of luck, my love," Tybalt said. He stood up. "And I will leave you now, to keep anyone else from coming up here."

Privately, Toby thought he might have some trouble keeping May out. But she just said, "Thanks," and sat on the floor of her room.

The house was old, and hadn't been constructed with rituals in mind. There was maybe 5 feet of space between the foot of the queen-sized bed and the wall. Toby closed her eyes and raised her hand to her mouth. She could cut it, but this felt right - taking a bite and letting her teeth break the surface of her skin, tasting her blood as the scent of her magic rose in the room.

Faerie had few cardinal rules. Usually, any rule with the Fae could be broken, and was in at least one species. But iron - iron was the bane of Faerie. Forged by men and used as a weapon, iron poisoned and killed. Faerie didn't evolve, not in the human sense; they had no defense against it. Toby thought, _we_ have no defense against it. Her blood had few traces of humanity in it now. 

But she wasn't doing this to bow to seeming impossibility. Blood was her magic. She closed her eyes, inhaled, and tasted the balance of her blood.

Science in the 80s was less advanced than it was in the present, but she knew the basics of genes and all that - human science. There wasn't anything like an iron gene in Faerie blood. But there was something within her - a resistance, an inflexibility. Immortality was a gift, but then so was adaptability. Changelings could become what they wanted, could tolerate iron. Toby - Toby couldn't, not anymore.

So she bent her blood. She quieted the poison. She called out to the human side of her, and without changing the balance of her blood, she changed the essence. She made herself adapt.

And then she passed out.

When she woke, there was dried blood in her mouth, and Quentin was glaring at her.

"Box in my closet," she said. Her voice was raspy, and she accepted the glass of water Tybalt offered her. "Hand it to me. Wood."

"Not a hope chest?" Quentin said, but he opened her closet without hesitation.

"I keep those elsewhere." Toby closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. If this worked, she'd need some coffee before trying to stab Titania.

Quentin looked a little green when he carried the box out of the closet. "You opened it, didn't you," Toby said.

"I should've realized what it was."

"Stand back," Toby told the room at large. She took the box from Quentin and flipped it open, expecting a wave of nausea to hit her when she laid eyes on her old iron knife.

Nothing.

"Oak and ash," Quentin said. "Toby, you really can stab Titania."

"That's the goal," Toby said. She put the knife back in its box and stood up. "Coffee. Then we find her."

"I don't suppose you're worried about your lower energy levels making opening the Blood Road impossible," Tybalt said.

"Nah," Toby said. "I'm going to open it directly into her living room."

Quentin and May shook their heads, identical in their exasperation. Toby dealt them a bland smile and led the way downstairs.

After coffee, she took out the iron knife. "Might as well, right?" she said when everyone recoiled.

"What exactly are our roles in this, Your Highness?" the Luidaeg said.

"Easy," Toby said. "Distract her. Her magic won't work on me if I've got the knife on me, but I don't want her to realize that. Distract her, and I'll do the rest."

"There's no way this will fail and we'll all fucking die," the Luidaeg said.

Toby said, "We'll go down the right way," and opened a cut in her forearm.

It was easier to access the Blood Road this time. She still felt an almost-sickening sensation of wrongness, but that didn't prevent her from leading everyone onto it. And this time, she didn't need a talisman to tell her where Titania was. Titania's magic was like a touchstone, pulling them forward.

They stepped out into the receiving hall in Titania's lair. Around them, Toby felt the ground shake.

Dewerder knew they were back.

"Hi," Toby said when Titania stared at them.

Titania's lips curled in a sneer. "Welcome back," she said, and threw magic at them.

The Luidaeg hadn't exactly had time to rest, but there was still a ringing clash as she threw her own magic out, shielding them. "Not so fast, Aunty," the Luidaeg said.

Titania looked bored. "Did you enjoy it? Ruling over humans in a pathetic city, touching the ocean only to mourn? Did it make you happy?"

"Not particularly," the Luidaeg said. "But this is really getting me going."

Toby inched over to the side. Titania's gaze was fixed on the Luidaeg, murderous; she didn't seem to notice Toby casting a don't-look-here.

Not that it would work that well on Titania. But it might buy her a little time.

Tybalt's voice was sinuous when he said, "The children of Titania always were a poisonous bunch. Are you planning to kill all of them, as well?"

"Only the weak will die," Titania said. "And I will rule from Dewerder, as I was meant to."

"Yeah, about that," May said. "She doesn't like you much."

Toby was within ten feet of Titania. She took another step forward -

And Titania's head whipped around to her, her face set in a sneer. "You."

"Me," Toby said. She dropped the don't-look-here and thought, screw it. In one movement, she pulled out the wooden chest, opened it, and threw the knife, square into Titania's chest.

Titania screamed. Around them, her magic raged. Toby felt like she'd been punched in the gut - no, torn open, the skin on her back opening in lashes. She fell to her knees and bit her lips bloody, partly in an attempt to shield herself with her own power, partly to keep from screaming.

Quentin yelled. Tybalt snarled. The Luidaeg roared, "Fuck you!"

And then, once again, Toby passed out.

 

When Toby woke up, Dewerder was looking down at her, and her back felt like it was on fire.

"My apologies," Dewerder said. "You can't lie on your stomach, you see. It's been burned."

"Iron?"

"Your immunity held. No, Titania lashed out with fire, at the end."

"Is she -"

"Dead," Dewerder said. "A proud daughter of Faerie, cut down."

"Oak and ash." Toby closed her eyes. "The sentence for killing her -"

"I am an excellent witness," Dewerder said. "I wouldn't worry. Let yourself heal." She touched Toby's forehead, and warmth rushed through Toby's body. Dewerder smiled and left.

Toby wasn't surprised when Tybalt rushed in after her. "October."

"I didn't almost die this time," Toby said. "You guys did the whole distraction thing well."

"We have disparate definitions of almost dying," Tybalt said. "But that was a good throw."

"Thanks." Toby closed her eyes in a bit of a long blink, then focused on him again. "I've been practicing."

He smiled and leaned down, kissing her. "I will bring you something to eat, and alert the others. Quentin's been worried."

"I'm sure he has," Toby said. She wiggled a little. Her back was itchy, already healing. "We should get back to San Francisco sooner rather than later. I want a donut."

"You and the Sea Witch both." He kissed her again, and then left.

In the end, they didn't get back to San Francisco for two days. The bulk of the injury was Toby's, but she wasn't strong enough to open the Blood Road right away, and the Luidaeg was barely in a better condition. Toby was just glad they'd survived; it was an abrupt and almost too-quick fight, but that didn't mean they hadn't gotten lucky. Titania's arrogance was what enabled them to kill her.

When they finally returned to San Francisco, Sylvester met them at Toby's house. Toby was surprised to see him. "Shadowed Hills -"

"I do, on occasion, leave," Sylvester said. His face was tight with worry. "Toby, are you okay?"

"I brought backup," Toby said. She waved to everyone. "See? I'm fine."

"She did good, for once," the Luidaeg said. "And that bitch who tried to kill me is dead now. All's well that ends well."

"Ah." Sylvester smiled faintly. "Yes. On the matter of Titania, Toby, the Queen in the Mists will be sending you a summons."

"I brought a statement," Toby said. She pulled out the crinkled parchment Dewerder had given her."

"Dewerder?" Sylvester read over it, his eyebrows raised. "The essence of one of Faerie's most storied lands vouched for you?"

"Titania had set up shop in her realm," Toby said. "She didn't like that. I'm sure you're shocked."

He laughed a little, then pulled her into a hug. "Not particularly. Go inside, get some rest. There's coffee and donuts. Come to Shadowed Hills tomorrow."

Toby nodded. "Will do, my liege."

"Well done, Sir Daye," he said, and went down the steps of the house, hailing a cab. For someone who didn't spend a lot of time among mortals, he did it with remarkable confidence.

"Donuts," Toby said. "Coffee. Now."

She'd eaten two glazed and one chocolate sprinkles and drunk three giant mugs of coffee when someone knocked on their front door. She rose to get it before May or Quentin had a chance. "Danny?"

He was holding his cap between his hands. "Toby," he said. "I got a problem."

Something in Toby reared, and she smiled. "I can help," she said. "Come on in."

Faerie'd survived, and so had she. It was time to keep moving.


End file.
